


Challenges

by genteelrebel



Series: Adam and Joe [9]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Angst, But All Will Be Made Clear In The Next Story, Canon-Typical Violence, Completely Evil Cliffhanger, Drama, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Homophobic Language, I promise, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, Several Immortal Challenges
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-13 09:05:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 64,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7971010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genteelrebel/pseuds/genteelrebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of the Adam and Joe Universe.  When Methos and Joe started over with new identities in Las Cruces, all Methos wanted was a quiet life.  He really did.  But it didn’t work out that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is meant as a companion to my story “[The House of the Novelty T-shirts.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3534758)” You probably need to read (or re-read) that one, along with “[Far Too Stupid for Ordinary Speech](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3677463)” for this one to make *total* sense. :)  However, if you are a dive-right-in kind of person, here's what you need to know: 
> 
> Methos and Joe had been a couple for more than a decade when they faked their deaths and started life anew as "Alex Porter" and "Jobey Darwin" in Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA. There, "Alex" found work as a linguistics professor at the University of New Mexico. "Jobey" retired.  And they both all but adopted the little girl living next door, named Milly Alfonso but nicknamed "The Sprout" and "The Pixie" by Joe and Methos respectively.  
> 
> OTHER NOTES: Astute readers will find many similarities between Kahvin’s Immortal Sanctuary and the real-world monastery of Mont Saint-Michel. I, er, stole it and moved it several hundred kilometers west. Also, there really was a monastery on Skellig Michael, the stunning scenery of which was recently featured at the end of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”. I can totally see Methos living there for a while…shame about that clumsy novice...
> 
> MARIA ALCOBAR (who made her debut in “[…Ordinary Speech](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3677463)”) has been officially re-named Maria Navarro to avoid any confusion between her and Richie’s fashion model foster sister from "Chivalry". (Thank you, [LadySilver](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySilver/pseuds/LadySilver), for pointing out that I’d accidentally given her the same name!) I apologize heartily for any “Huh? What?” moments this may cause.
> 
> GRATEFUL THANKS ARE GIVEN to the brilliant Celebrithil, who not only provided invaluable help with all the French phrases and words you will find herein, but also taught me the difference between an arming sword and broadsword. Any sword-fighting inaccuracies left are entirely my own fault. Trust me, she did her best.
> 
> And finally, THIS STORY COULD NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN AT ALL without the constant support of the wonderful [Liz_Mo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/liz_mo/pseuds/liz_mo): she who was, is, and ever shall be the World’s Greatest Beta. Thank you, hon!

_~Las Cruces, New Mexico, January 2008~_

The first time Methos ever felt an unknown Immortal Presence in New Mexico, it was at the tail end of his mid-morning French class, just as he was finishing up a rather boring day spent teaching vocabulary words for birds and fish.  The Presence was far away, just at the edge of his sensing range, and so faint that he almost could believe he was imagining it.  Nevertheless, he was seriously startled by it, enough that he faltered mid-sentence.  It was only a momentary pause, and he covered it well.  Methos figured that most of his students wouldn’t notice the interruption at all.  But then he heard the titter.  He frowned, and Maria Navarro, one of his favorite and most talented students, shyly raised her hand.  “Um, professor,” she said tactfully.  “I think…um…I mean, I don’t think you wrote quite what you meant to write just then.” 

Methos looked down.  His hands, which had been busily scrawling on one of the antiquated overhead projectors the Language Department still used, hadn’t written “Le Merle” (“blackbird”) at the end of his list of common French birds after all.  Instead, it had written “Merde” (“Shit.”)  He blinked down at the projector, then out at the class.  Most of them looked baffled.  This was only first year French, and few of the students had, as yet, had a chance to put a more….practical…polish on their academic vocabularies.  But three or four obviously had, and they were on the verge of falling out of their chairs.  Methos sighed and rubbed the offending word off the transparency sheet.  “Right,” he said.  “Thank you, Miss Navarro.  As ever, your sharp eyes are an inspiration.  All right, you lot.  I think that’s enough for today.  Remember: do the online homework for chapter 27 tonight.  And keep practicing in your conversation groups after class. Your next oral exam is only one week away, and I have spent a great deal of time making sure it will be as brutal as possible.  But—“  He forestalled the class’s groan with a raised hand—“Everyone who laughed at my little Freudian slip today—and yes, I know who you are-- will get one extra credit point towards the test.  Clearly, you’ve expanded your study of the French language beyond the merely curricular, which is the kind of initiative I like to see.  And just to keep it semi-fair, everyone who *didn’t* catch it can earn the same extra credit point if he or she writes me twenty words—in French, please—on the inadvisability of letting one’s mind wander in class.  E-mail it to me by Monday, people.  Class dismissed.”

The class, still snickering, emptied the classroom with remarkable speed.  Methos took advantage of the sudden solitude to close his eyes and concentrate.  Oh, yes.  Definite Immortal Presence.  And while it had started out some several hundred feet away, it had rapidly gotten stronger and closer, until Methos knew the owner was waiting for him just outside the classroom door. For a moment, he allowed himself to hope that the Presence belonged to Amanda.  She and Nick had made noises about stopping to see them on their way home from their latest Caribbean vacation, and it would be just like the Immortal minx to drop by without calling first.  But no.  Whoever this strange Immortal was, the flavor of his Quickening was younger.  Sharper.  And humming with a quiet, dedicated sense of purpose that left Methos in no doubt of its owner’s intentions.

Damn.

Methos turned off the projector and locked his laptop into the teacher’s desk.  The desk was a rickety wooden thing, several decades more antiquated than the projector.  Methos normally wouldn’t have trusted the lock to protect so much as a pack of gum, but it would have to serve for now.  Then he put on his brown suede professor’s jacket, savored the reassuring weight of his hidden Ivanhoe settling against him like a shield, and went to the classroom door. 

The other Immortal was standing in the hallway, leaning up against the opposite wall.  Even surrounded by a tide of milling students, he was impossible to miss.  If his long blonde hair hadn’t marked him as a stranger in the crowd of conservative short male haircuts, his ankle-length black leather coat…complete overkill in Las Cruces’s notoriously sunny climate, even in the depths of winter…most definitely did.  But if the other Immortal was aware of how peculiar his wardrobe made him, he didn’t seem to care.  He was as relaxed as if he had all the time in the world, nonchalantly studying the passing crowd.  It wasn’t until the after-class traffic in the hall had completely thinned away that he finally straightened up and looked Methos’s way.  And Methos finally got a good look at his face.

Ah, yes.  Definitely not a local boy.  Even at this distance, it was easy to see that the stranger’s face looked as young as a teenager’s… and also, that his eyes did not.  They were an unusual shade of greenish blue, almost aquamarine; along with his aquiline nose and sharp chin the eyes managed to give him a slightly fey, otherworldly look.  The combination made him a strikingly beautiful young man, whom at first glance one might dismiss as weak.  There was, however, nothing even remotely weak about the way in which he returned Methos’s glance, which was direct, knowing, and so amused as to almost be insulting.  Methos felt that gaze go through him like an electric shock.  Those eyes held Challenge, plain and simple, and instantly his entire body was stirring with the hot desire to answer it in kind... 

But that was the reaction of a child, an Immortal barely past his first death. Methos had had thousands of years in which to learn restraint.  And more reason than most, now, to be cautious and exercise it.  With a curt nod at the stranger, Methos drew back into the classroom.  As he closed the door behind him a quick glance showed that the Immortal had returned to his comfortable lounge against the wall, evidently more than content to wait.  Well, he had every reason to be patient.  Methos’s classroom was on the linguistics’ building fourth floor, and—unless he wanted to squeeze through one of the narrow 1920’s windows, break a leg, and get caught healing in front of the post-class crowd in the quad outside-- that hallway was his only exit.  Methos sighed, and took out his phone.  A second later he had hit speed-dial one.  “Jobey.  It’s me.”

“Hey you!”  Joe’s voice sounded loud and happy, which was a very good thing.  Otherwise Methos would never have been able to hear him over the loud classic rock playing in the background.  “Hold on a sec,” Joe said apologetically, and called into the distance.  “Sprout, honey, could you turn that down for a minute?  It’s Alex.”  The stirring strains of “La Bamba” abruptly cut off, although they were replaced by something almost as stirring—girlish giggling, loud and uncontrolled.  “Sprout brought home her first 100% correct multiplication test today,” Joe said into the phone.  “So I’m making her cookies, and I let her download a new song to celebrate. Which…”  Joe’s voice dropped ruefully…  “I may really end up regretting, since I’ve already heard “La Bamba” 23 times this afternoon.  Wait, hold on just another minute.”  There was another pause during which Methos could hear an oven door open and close, then Joe returned.  “1 dozen of Grandma Dawson’s Super Special Peanut Butter Oatmeal cookies out of the oven,” he said with satisfaction.  “And not a burned top in the lot.  So why the phone call, Alex?  Are you on your way home already?”

“Actually, I might be a little late.”

“Going to go work out?”

“I hadn’t planned to.  But it seems likely.”  Methos lowered his voice.  “There’s someone new on campus, Jobey.  He’s currently waiting right outside my classroom door.  I don’t know him; I’ve never laid eyes on him before.  But I have a strong feeling that he wants me to be his workout partner tonight.”

Dead silence.  Then Methos heard Joe say, rather distantly: “Really.  This…potential workout partner of yours.  He wouldn’t happen to be a fellow fencing enthusiast, now would he?”

“You know, I do believe he is.”

“Damn,” Joe said quietly.  Then, much louder: “Sprout, would you excuse me for a second?  You can start scooping the balls out onto the sheet for the second batch.  Just don’t try putting them in the oven without me, okay?  Your grandma will skin me alive if I send you home with burnt fingers.”  Methos heard another giggle and a murmured assent from the Pixie.  Then there were footsteps, and then the sound of a firmly closing door before Joe spoke again. “Okay.  I’m alone now. Tell me what you need.”

“Where are you?  My study?”

“Yes.”

“Good.  Jobey, I need you to hack into the Watcher database for me.  The school network isn’t anywhere near secure enough for me to want to do it from here.  Get out the special laptop and check out the current field assignments, find out which lucky field agent followed their Immortal to Las Cruces today.”  Methos’s throat tightened grimly.  “I need to know if he or she can identify me as Adam Pierson.”

“Shit,” Joe said breathily.  Methos could almost hear his heartbeat accelerating.  But they had been partners, in every sense of the word, for a very long time.  When the chips were down, they both simply acted instead of panicking, and Joe had lost none of his ability to think and act rationally in a clinch.  A second later Methos heard the electronic chime of his laptop being awakened from its sleep, then several seconds of very rapid typing.  “I’m in now.  Just waiting for the latest field reports to update,” Joe said softly…then suddenly sounded startled.  “Alex…there’s no one.”

“Excuse me?”

 “You heard me.  Nothing’s changed since we hacked in last week.  The only other Watcher agent in all of New Mexico is still old Don Cotton in Mescalero, Watching Rising Crow…”

“It’s not Crow, Jobey.  Trust me.  The gentleman currently awaiting my attention is most definitely not an eight-hundred-year-old Native American shaman.”

“No.”  Joe sounded resigned.   “I’d be surprised if it was him, anyway.  Neither Rising Crow nor his Watcher have left the Apache reservation for years.  Well, apart from Don Cotton, the only other Watcher to have been in New Mexico at all recently was Molly June.  She followed Jennifer Piatza to Santa Fe for a gem and jewelry show last month.  But they’re both back in Seacouver now, and neither one went anywhere near Las Cruces while they were here.  Hold on.  Let me check the travel vouchers and the cell phone records, just to be sure…”  Joe clicked a few more keys.  “It’s true, Alex.  Rising Crow and Jennifer Piatza are the only two Watched Immortals to have been in New Mexico all year.  Whoever your guy is, it looks like he’s off the radar.”

“Really.”  Almost without his conscious volition, Methos’s eyes closed, letting the full power of the other Immortal’s Quickening wash over him.   An undeniable thrill ran down his spine.  “Well.  Doesn’t that make things...interesting.” 

“Come home.  Now.” Joe’s voice was very sharp. 

Methos heard the sharpness, as well as the intense worry behind it.  With great effort, he refocused on his beloved.  “I can’t, Jobey,” he said with honest regret.  “Our Quickenings are…damn, I’m not sure I can explain.  It’s like we’re fighting already, even if we haven’t exchanged blows.  If I try to leave now, he’ll just follow me home.  To you.  And to the Pixie.” 

There was a brief silence as Joe digested this.  “So what are you going to do, then?”

“Relax, Jobey.  I’m not going to behead the man in the middle of campus.  It might hurt my chances of getting an early tenure.  I’m just going to confront him.  Have a friendly chat.”  Methos swallowed, the sudden knife-edge intensity of the other Immortal’s Presence and his own rapidly increasing eagerness putting the lie to his reassuring words.  “But if things go the way I think they will…”

“Yes?”

Joe’s voice was even sharper now.  Methos bit his lip.  “He wants a fight, Jobey.  And there’s no telling how long he’s been observing me from a distance, or how much he might know about my family life.  Now that I know there aren’t any Watchers around to complicate matters, I really think it’s for the best that I take care of him here. Now.  Before anybody gets any bright ideas about taking human hostages.”  Methos lowered his voice.  “You might want to send the Pixie home early tonight.  Just in case.”

“I can’t,” Joe answered, equally quietly.  “Margaretta’s not feeling well again, and Gabriella’s working late.  I said I’d keep the Sprout until bedtime.  But…I’ll keep her safe.  You know I will.” 

There was a world of commitment in the gentle statement. Methos bowed his head, knowing that Joe would do whatever it took to make it true.  Then Joe said, almost wistfully:  “Ten minutes ago I was making cookies and dancing to La Bamba.”

The wistfulness hit Methos like a blow.  “I know,” he answered.  “And I’m sorry.  It’s…”

“Just the way things are.  Yeah.”  Joe’s voice was gruff.  “And I’m the one that’s sorry.  I shouldn’t have said that.  I just…” He gave a weak chuckle.  “I still haven’t figured out just what to say to you at times like this, I guess.  It wasn’t exactly covered in the Watcher handbook.”

 “Think we need to write a new chapter?”

“Yes,” Joe said heartily.  “Or put up one of those self-help guides on the Internet, anyway.  ‘How to Send Your Immortal Lover into Battle with a Smile on His Face and a Song in His Heart.’  I’m sure it would be the talk of Wiki-How.”  Methos chuckled softly.  Joe sounded apologetic.  “Sorry.  I’m babbling.  It’s just that whenever these moments do come up, I feel like I should tell you *something*.  Just in case…well.  You know why.  But I can never figure out what that something should be.”

 “You don’t need to say anything, Jobey,” Methos answered softly.  “I already know.  Just…tell me you’ll save me a cookie.”

He could almost see Joe’s lightning smile.  “I’ll do that.  Hell, I’ll even make you your very own batch.”

“With extra raisins?”

“Yeah.  With extra raisins.”  They were both silent for a moment, but it was a silence almost more intimate than speech would have been.  Then Joe murmured “Be safe,” and hung up.

Methos held onto the phone for a long moment, feeling its light, almost feathery weight in his palm and the coolness of the metal casing.  Then he closed it with a determined snap and locked it into the desk along with his laptop.  Once Methos and this new Immortal truly confronted each other, the phone would be useless; there was something about Methos’s uniquely powerful Presence that always blocked cell-phone signals when roused.  Besides.  The phone was an accoutrement of his mortal life, the masquerade he so successfully performed from day to day.  The man who used it to text his colleagues about work and share pictures of the Pixie with his husband had no place in what was coming.  It was time to let something far older and more dangerous take over.  Methos settled his coat more firmly on his shoulders, opened the door, and walked out into the hall.

The other Immortal straightened the moment he heard the door open.  There was a gleam of anticipation in the strange gem-like eyes that resonated deeply within Methos’s own being.  That something older and more dangerous definitely began to sit up and take notice.  But he forced himself to speak calmly. “I believe you are looking for me.”

The stranger nodded slightly.

“Have we met before?”

A shake of the head.

“But I am the one you are looking for today.”

Another nod.  This time the other Immortal’s soft pink lips curled up into an almost predatory smile, and he ever-so-slightly opened his coat, giving Methos a glimpse of the metal shining beneath.  He only permitted Methos the briefest of glances before he closed the coat again, but it was enough.  Methos recognized a sturdy longsword, neat and workmanlike and absolutely deadly.  A thrill of pleasure ran over him…oh, yes, this was going to be fun.  Methos could almost feel his Quickening watering with eagerness.  But once again, he controlled himself and spoke calmly.  “This is not the place.”

The stranger nodded.  He looked at Methos inquiringly.  “I know where we can go,” Methos said softly.  “But you’ll have to follow me there.  Not too close.  It will be better for both of us if we’re not seen together.  Just wait until I’m out of sight, then follow the pull of my Quickening.  All right?”

The other Immortal spread his hands, inclining his head gracefully as if it to say, “After you.”  Methos nodded in turn, turned smartly on one foot, and left.

He crossed the campus with sure, steady strides, only waving briefly at the handful of students and colleagues who called out to greet him, and never, ever once looking behind him.   He didn’t need to.  The other Immortal was following his instructions to the letter, following at the very edge of sensing range. Methos could feel him there, his Quickening thrumming with eagerness, and it fired Methos’s own blood.  He walked off the campus and into the maze of streets that was the surrounding University district, amazed at how keenly the young man followed--even when Methos disappeared down an alley between two warehouses that should have said “ambush” to anyone with the survival instincts of a flea.  Methos hid himself in the shadows and waited.

His purpose wasn’t actually to ambush his opponent, or even to fight him in the alley at all.  He merely wanted them both to enter the building, an old 19th century sugar warehouse, without being seen.  He and Joe had purchased the warehouse, through several layers of dummy corporations, only a few days after Dr. Porter had signed his contract at the University.  The building was old and empty and windowless and only a fifteen minute walk from Methos’s campus office; Methos often went there after class, to practice all the sword moves and gymnastics it was better no one suspected Alex Porter could do.  He and Joe also used it for storage, for the spare weapons and cash and cars a prudent Immortal always kept close at hand...but at an address no curious police officer would ever think to search.  Because of this, he and Joe had actually spent more money renovating the warehouse than they had their home.  The building was now very well insulated and secured, protected by the best security system Amanda and Nick could recommend.  If one had to take a head in Las Cruces, one couldn’t ask for a better location. 

But the only entrance—at least, the only entrance Methos was willing to share with the blonde unknown—was down this alleyway.  It was in a little nook in the building that could not be observed from the main street, not even from any of the surrounding rooftops.  And as eager for combat as the other Immortal seemed to be, Methos had his doubts that the man would actually follow him into it.  God knew *Methos* wouldn’t have been caught dead following a Challenger into a locked building that was so obviously his opponent’s home turf.  He more than half expected the child to change his mind and run away.

Much to Methos’s surprise, however, the boy simply grinned to himself at the alleyway’s entrance and followed him into the darkness.  He even stood by patiently while Methos scanned his fingerprints and keyed in the security code that unlocked the heavy metal door.  In the shadows, it was impossible to see the Challenger’s face, but his posture and his Quickening both seemed relaxed now, his early eagerness replaced by a strange kind of peace.  It was almost like he was a college kid waiting for his best friend to unlock his apartment so they could get a beer out of the fridge and watch the game.  No one would ever have suspected that he was actually a serial killer, intent on fighting a battle to the death. 

This nonchalance threw Methos a little.  It startled him even more when the boy calmly walked into the warehouse ahead of him.  He drew his longsword as he went but made no move to use it, merely standing serenely in the center of the vast cement floor while Methos locked the door and made sure all was secure behind them.  It made the old Immortal feel very suspicious.  Surely, the child wasn’t so confident as to turn down the chance to get the upper hand?  Or had he simply had a Teacher à la Duncan MacLeod, someone who had drilled him over and over on the rules of fair combat, and was still too young to have realized that not everyone followed them?  For a second, Methos felt an irrational, very Macleod-ish urge to ask the boy if he really wanted to do this, and give him a chance to back out…but no.  The Game was the Game.  The child should never have begun this if he didn’t already understand that brutal fact.  Besides.   He had shown up here in Las Cruces, brazenly Challenged Methos outside of his very own classroom.  Heaven only knew what else he knew about Alex Porter’s existence, or how he would use that information to get what he desired.  For Joe’s sake, and for the Pixie’s, Methos had to end this here.  

He drew his own sword and arched his eyebrows, the only warning the child would get.  The boy nodded gracefully back.  Then Methos charged, and the Challenge began.

It…was…*sweet*.

For centuries, Methos had resisted this.  He’d simply been too old and too tired to take any pleasure in what had seemed a pointless ritual of death, a millennial-old slaughter that had no end in sight and certainly didn’t need his help to continue.  Even after the Double Quickening had ended his unintentional slavery to MacLeod, Methos had only taken one head--and he never would have done *that* if Morgan Walker hadn’t been such an unmitigated sociopath, one who could not be counted on to let him live with Joe in peace.  Oh, Methos would admit to feeling the odd flash of satisfaction during that fight when he’d gotten in a particularly good blow, and it had certainly been nice ridding the world of that bastard once and for all, but no way would Methos put it up there as one of his most pleasurable experiences of the last ten years.    A quiet Sunday morning in bed with Joe was so much better…

This was different. 

It had been many, many centuries since he’d last had a fight like this.  No drama, no heartbreaking moral dilemmas, no thousands of mortal lives hanging in the balance; this was just a Challenge, two Immortals doing what Immortals had always done.  And while at a later time Methos’s mind might protest the senselessness of that, right now, his body and soul were suddenly remembering the point.  They were experiencing once again what it felt like to face a gifted opponent in battle.  To put everything on the line.  And to know to your bones that you were stronger… 

Because he *was* stronger.  From the moment their swords first clashed, both Immortals knew who the victor would be.  In that first quick, intimate exchange of blows Methos felt his opponent’s Quickening full force and suddenly knew that the boy really *was* a boy.  He was perhaps 75 or 80 at the most, much younger than Methos had guessed back in the hall.  And even though his Quickening burned with a strong, steady heat, it was like a cigarette lighter compared to the roaring forest fire that was Methos.   There was no chance for him.  No chance at all.

 But young as he was, someone had taught him well. He parried Methos’s first attack with a skill that, again, reminded Methos of MacLeod…although even MacLeod would have been hard pressed to match this boy’s light-footed grace.  When the first exchange was over, he looked Methos right in the eye and gave him an almost saucy grin, one that plainly said “ _we both may know how this is going to end, but I’m going to make you work for it.”_ He tossed his hair over his shoulder in what, under any other circumstances, would have been an act of pure flirtation.  Then he took off running, back into the shadowy recesses of the warehouse where Methos and Joe’s spare cars were stored.  And Methos simply grinned back and ran after him.

From then on, the fight was an exercise in pure pleasure.  The child played with him, engaging and retreating, for what seemed an endless time.  It was a game of cat and mouse, but Methos’s cat-like prowling had no flavor of cruelty, and the mouse didn’t really want to get away.  Even when Methos’s hand got caught in the boy’s jacket, the diamond of his wedding ring briefly snagging in some of the decorative leather lacing on the other Immortal’s sleeve, the child didn’t really take advantage of the opening.  His sword skated by Methos’s neck, but the touch was much more of a caress than a blow, far more stimulating than it was threatening.  In fact, the boy seemed committed to doing everything he could to arouse Methos’s long-dormant Quickening lust, pushing the excitement higher with every clash…

…and that, along with the younger man’s obvious strength and skill, made for one of the most sensually joyful Challenges Methos had ever fought.  The crashing and sparking of their swords was beautiful.  The movements of their bodies, from the graceful acrobatic leaps and rolls to the brutal power of their clinches, was more beautiful still.  And the weaving and interlacing of their Quickenings, first battling, then beginning to blend together as Methos’s victory grew near, was the most beautiful thing of all.  Methos felt the promise growing with every moment of the encounter, and passionately craved the battle’s final consummation—but he was also enjoying himself so much that he never wanted it to end. Once or twice he could have taken the death blow, but he didn’t, simply for the joy of seeing how the boy would react.  And the strange gem-like eyes flashed at him, seeming to know exactly what he was doing, and drew him even deeper into the fray.

At last, though, the boy’s lesser physical strength was exhausted, and the sword was knocked from of his hand.  He stood motionless for a moment, taking deep quick breaths that swelled his ribcage, then dropped gracefully to his knees.  Methos stepped in closer, touching the blade to the boy’s throat.  His power was slight, youthful, but intoxicating.  Methos could feel it, swirling in the air, channeling down the blade—oh, yes, this would be exquisite, and his many of years of abstinence simply made it that much better.  He lifted the tip of the Ivanhoe away, feeling the connection between them grow even stronger, creating a moment of sublime tension as the boy’s Quickening reached toward the sword, begging to be set free.  Oh, god.  Methos wanted…he wanted…in mere moments he would have…He raised the blade above his head, gathering the momentum it would take to make the beheading quick and clean.

As he did, he was astonished to see the boy begin to tremble.  Not with fear, but with desire, as if his heart and mind were so in line with his Quickening’s needs that even his body had given up its age-old fear of death and was actually craving its release.  It was a breathless moment of anticipation for them both, so erotic that Methos felt an inexplicable urge to bend down and kiss the boy on the lips—and if Methos hadn’t been so well married, faithfulness to Joe long since hard-wired into every cell, he very well might have.  Instead he just closed his eyes for a moment, shivering, reveling.  When he opened them again he looked right into the boy’s eyes as, somewhat sadly, he spoke the ritual phrase.  “There can be only one.”

It felt strange, saying those words.  Methos couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually said them at the end of a Challenge.  For the last two thousand years Methos had despised them as being too theatrical, too cliché—and not to mention wishful thinking.  He’d lived too long to really believe that this great ‘Game’ of theirs would ever come to an end. But using them now was the only gift he could give the boy.  Methos was telling the child that he had fought well.  Telling him, too, that his death was not meaningless, it was part of the great dance. Even if Methos himself could no longer believe that, for that one moment he almost did—and that was the greatest compliment he could give the youngster.  The greatest tribute, too. 

Oddly, the child seemed to know it.  His body actually relaxed, ceasing to tremble as he looked back at Methos.  There was an almost tender look in his clear blue-green eyes.  Then, just as Methos began to swing the sword down, he spoke.  It was the first and last time Methos would ever hear his voice.  “ _Dieu veuille que ce soit vous, bibliothécaire_."

_God grant it may be you, librarian._

It shocked him.  It shocked him so much, in fact, that Methos almost pulled his stroke.  Thankfully, his body and his Quickening knew better than his mind.  The sword had already begun its descent.  If he’d hesitated, all he would have accomplished would have been to stop the blade halfway through the child’s neck, a fate this youngster most definitely did not deserve.  But the sword fell.  The cut was clean.  Methos caught an expression of deep peace on the boy’s face before his head fell backward.  And then the bright fog rose out of his body, wrapping Methos in shivering, shaking ecstasy as the lightning flashed and the boy’s power joined his own. 

The moment it was physically possible, Methos pulled himself to his feet.  He stumbled over to his assailant’s body and threw himself on it, ignoring the blood as well as his own trembling hands as he frantically searched through the Immortal’s clothes.  The boy’s pockets were depressingly empty: he’d carried no cell phone, no driver’s license, no passport or other form of ID.  There was literally nothing to tie him to this time and place, no clue as to who he might have been or why he had called Methos what he had.  But in a hidden pocket in his coat, just above the sheath that had held the boy’s the sword, Methos’s fingers suddenly touched a wad of soft cloth.  He took it out, shook it out, and held it up to the light, already halfway knowing just what he was going to see. 

Even after the Quickening had completely settled, it took Methos a long, long time to stop shaking.


	2. Chapter 2

Joseph Dawson had pretty much gotten used to the fact that his life wasn’t ever going to be normal.

This, of course, had been true for a very long time.  After all, Joe was a bisexual, differently-abled man who had worked for a secret organization for nearly all his life—an organization that existed to record the histories of people who didn’t die.   Even before a certain dark-haired man with the heart of a poet, the mind of a Machiavelli, and the ass of a Baryshnikov had walked through the door, Joe hadn’t exactly been leading an ordinary life.  Once that man had—well, any chance Joe had left for even approaching normalcy had gone crashing away.  Suddenly, he was in love with one of those people who could not die.  And nothing would ever be normal again.

But even if you felt that *that* tiny little subset of humanity, the mortals who loved Immortals, had its own kind of normal—after all, there were many Immortals in the world, and most of the non-psychopathic ones took at least a few mortal lovers during the courses of their long lives—even amongst that tiny group, Joe still stood out.  He didn’t love just any Immortal.  He loved *the* Immortal:  Methos, the Ancient One, oldest of the old, the eldest Immortal still walking the face of the earth.  And through a series of circumstances far too intricate to relate, Methos’s Quickening had somehow gotten tangled up into Joe’s own body.  Which was something Joe was fairly certain had never happened before in all of Immortal history. 

It didn’t give Joe the blessing of Immortality.  Hell, it didn’t even give him an edge in warding off the common cold. But it did connect him to his lover in a way that was almost unexplainable, making them a deeper part of each other than most long-term couples could imagine.  At least once or twice a month, Joe would sleep with strange faces and languages filling his head, and wake up in the morning to realize that he’d once again dreamed Methos’s dreams.  Methos occasionally dreamed Joe’s as well.  And when Methos began telling Joe stories about his past, sometimes all Joe had to do was close his eyes and he could experience those memories as if they had been his all along.    

Yup.  The normality bus had long since pulled out of Joe’s station.

Still.  There were moments—sometime entire months and years—of near-normality.  Times when the simple, ordinary day-to-day events of their lives were so all-encompassing that Joe tended to forget there was anything else.  Like today. The Sprout had come home from school proudly waving her weekly multiplication test, the first one on which she’d ever scored a full hundred percent--up until that week, the sevens and eights had eluded her.  Joe, who had spent hours coming up with creative ways to drill her on them (“Okay, Sprout.  Suppose Alex has seven swords hanging on the wall and they’re set with eight emeralds each—how many emeralds would you see?”) had felt the success with as much pride as if it had been his own.  He’d instantly headed into the kitchen to whip up a few dozen of Grandma Dawson’s Famous Oatmeal Cookies to celebrate.  He’d even given Milly permission for a still greater treat: the chance to pick out and download a song on iTunes for her very own.  By the time the first batch was mixed and spooned onto the cookie sheets, Milly had purchased “La Bamba” and was playing it loudly through the living room computer’s speakers, dancing by herself in the middle of the carpet and looking as blissful as only a happy eight-year-old can.  Joe slid the cookies into the oven, then smiled and held out his hands.  The two of them began swaying together in time to the music while the scent of baking cookies filled the air, giggling and grinning like loons.  It was good moment, a happy moment, and so ridiculously *normal* that Joe almost forgot all the other weirdness in his life existed…

And then the telephone rang.

Which should have been normal, too.  After all, Methos almost always called right after his last class, to let Joe know what time he’d be coming home.  Paperwork, last minute departmental meetings, and cheating students all tended to crop up with annoying frequency, so Joe usually didn’t know what time to expect Methos home for dinner until he called.  But tonight it wasn’t one of those oh-so-normal perils of the professor’s workday that was keeping Methos after school.  Tonight, it was another Immortal.  And the odds were good that before too many more hours passed, Methos would be fighting for his life. 

For the first time since they’d started their lives over in Las Cruces. 

The second Joe hung up, he started telling himself all kinds of things.  Things like: Methos hadn’t gotten to be as old as he was for no reason.  Things like: Methos was the most cautious, paranoid bastard on the face of the earth, and would never allow himself to be drawn into a fight he could not win.  Joe even reminded himself of what Methos had said their psychic friend Cassie had once told him, that Methos was a better fighter than all but three other Immortals on the planet—two of whom Joe was pretty sure were now dead, and the third of which was currently harmlessly selling antiques whilst nursing a broken heart back in New York.  But none of it helped very much.  Milly bounded over to Joe excitedly when he re-entered the kitchen, eager to show off her cookie-batter-scooping skill; Joe did his best to seem impressed, but it only took the little girl two seconds to realize something was wrong.  Her face clouded.  “Alex isn’t coming home?” she asked.

“What?  Oh.  No, honey.  He’ll be home.” Joe said, mentally cursing himself for showing his worry so openly. “He’s just going to be a little late, that’s all.” Milly nodded gravely, but she did not look convinced.  With an effort, Joe pulled himself together.  He bent over and whispered conspiratorially.  “And you know what?  That gives us time to do some more baking. I think a 100% multiplication test deserves more than one kind of cookie, don’t you?”

Milly’s wide eyes got even wider.  “You do?”

“I do.”  Joe gave his staunchest nod.  “Do you think you could go Google a few more recipes for me?”

He had hardly asked the question before Milly had run off.  Like most of her generation, the child was precociously good with computers, and liked nothing better than an excuse to surf the web on her own.  Joe supervised her long enough to make sure she’d gotten to a reputable baking site—for all he knew, there was a “yummytreats.com” that featured porn instead of cookie recipes—and then quietly withdrew to secure the house.   He made sure that all the blinds were drawn, all the doors and windows were locked, and that his cell phone was charged and ready for use.  He took his handgun and shoulder holster from the basement safe and donned them both, then added a jacket so Milly wouldn’t know he had.  Finally, he discretely assembled a collection of Hefty bags, towels, and industrial strength cleaner and put them in his car, just in case he had to help Methos with body disposal.  And after that, there was nothing to do but wait.

And wait.  Just like the old days, wondering if MacLeod was going to come back from his latest Challenge-of-the-week.  Only now, instead of drinking a bottle of scotch in the solitude of a lonely bar, Joe made cookies in the kitchen with an eight-year-old.  By seven thirty, the kitchen counters were covered with cooling cookies: peanut butter, chocolate chip, even a version of Mexican _polvorones_.  (The Sprout got an odd expression on her face when she tasted these last, then tactfully suggested that Joe ask Margaretta for help before he made them again.)  By eight thirty, a rapidly running out of inspiration Joe had made them both scrambled eggs for dinner, and started making ice cream sandwiches for desert: slapping two cookies together with a thick layer of vanilla ice cream in between.  It was a shameless use of food-as-distraction, and Joe was sure Margaretta was going to have words with him about it later, after he’d sent the Sprout home riding the mother of all sugar highs.    But in the meantime it kept Joe’s mind from going off the rails, and Milly was in seventh heaven…chattering away happily as they worked, the fiftieth repetition of La Bamba playing softly in the background.  And then, just as Methos’s ornate old grandfather clock began chiming nine, a car pulled up in the driveway. 

Before Joe could so much as lay his spatula down, Milly had sprinted to the front door and was on her tiptoes undoing the chain.  Joe’s already seriously addled heart went into overdrive.  Who knew what was on the other side of that door?  But before Joe could reach under his jacket for his handgun or even form the first syllable of Milly’s name, she had tugged the door open…and a familiar figure was behind it.  “Alex!” Milly shrieked.  She held up her arms and started bouncing on her heels, the way small children do when they want to be picked up. 

Joe followed the little girl warily into the foyer.  There was no question that Methos looked extremely tired.  He did not, however, look like there was a blood-crazed Immortal on his tail.  Nor was he too exhausted to swing the Sprout up into his arms and settle her onto his hip, although the kiss he brushed across her forehead was definitely distracted.  “Hello, Pix.  I hear you did us proud in math class today,” he said.  “Jobey.  I’m sorry it took me so long to get home.  I—“ His glance flickered to the bulge under Joe’s sport coat, then to the hideous wreck of a kitchen visible through the hallway arch, and finally to the smear of flour decorating Milly’s ebony hair.  Some of the tired lines around his eyes softened. “I hope it wasn’t too hard, waiting for me.”

The tired voice was so full of tender love and understanding—communicating instantly to Joe that Methos knew *exactly* how terrible the last hours had been, and loved him for getting through them--that Joe wanted nothing more than to rush to Methos’s side and claim a kiss of his own.  But the Sprout’s presence kept him rooted in place.  “Not too hard, no,” he answered.  “Milly and I had a quiet night.  Really nice and peaceful.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Yeah.” Joe nodded.  “And what about you?  Did your…workout…go well?”

“Very well,” Methos answered.  “For me, at least.  But somehow I doubt my workout partner would say the same.”

“Do you think he’ll want to work out with you again?”

“I would be extremely surprised if he did, Jobey.”  Methos met Joe’s eyes over the Pixie’s glossy dark hair.  “He had to leave on a sudden trip.  The longest trip possible, one might say.  Sadly, he will never be able to work out with me again.” 

“Thank god.”  

Joe breathed the words.  There was no way he could have censored them, not even knowing that there was a pair of eight-year-old ears listening in.  Fortunately, it didn’t matter.  Milly’s attention had already been distracted by something else.  She pointed to Methos’s neck, just under his left ear. “You hurt yourself!”

Joe glanced at his beloved sharply.  There was, in fact, a slight smear of blood under Methos’s left ear.  It was so slight that one would have to be either Sprout-close or looking for it to see…but it was more than enough to make Joe’s stomach seize with icy horror.  Methos, however, stayed perfectly calm. “Is there?” he said with beautiful unconcern, running his fingers under his ear.  “Oh.  I suppose I must have cut myself shaving at the gym.  My own fault, Pix.  I knew I was late and I was rushing to come home, and I was careless.”

The Sprout looked puzzled.  “But Alex, you don’t shave.”

“Don’t I?”

“No.  Not even on Sundays.” Milly eyed him, giving him a skeptical look that was way too mature for her years. “*I* think you were doing something you weren’t supposed to at the gym and you hurt yourself.  Like the time I went down the slide at the park backwards and fell off.  I think you just don’t want Jobey to find out.  He scolds.”

Methos smiled.  “Can’t put anything by you, can I, Pix.” He swung her up into the air. 

It was a move calculated to make the little girl dissolve into giggles, and it worked.  Only Joe noticed that when Methos pulled Milly in close again he settled her against his other hip, where she could no longer see the blood.  Joe got a grip on his flip-flopping stomach and decided it was time to step in.  “Right,” he said firmly.  “Scolding or not, I think Alex needs a Band-Aid. Sprout, would you go get the first aid kit out of the bathroom, please?” 

Milly nodded emphatically.  Methos shot Joe a curious look, but he put the little girl down.  She ran off to get the kit.  The second she was out of sight, Joe crossed the hall to Methos’s side.  “Shhh,” he said warningly.  “The kit’s actually in the hall closet, not the bathroom.  Nevertheless, I predict it will take the Sprout all of three minutes to find it and come back.  So first things first.” Joe grabbed his husband’s collar and pulled him in for a kiss, an “ohmygod ohmygod am I glad to see *you*” sort of kiss, one that was fueled by equal parts of passion and pure terror.  After a few seconds, though, Joe cut it short. He pressed his forehead to Methos’s and spoke in a low tone.  “All right,” he said. “Now that that’s out of the way, we can move on to second things second.  Where’s the body?”

“Taken care of,” Methos said, equally softly.  “That’s why I’m running so late.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?  Still?  But--“ 

Joe clamped down on the words.  True, Methos hadn’t taken many heads in the time that Joe had known him—only three, Kristin’s and Silas’s and Morgan Walker’s.  But he had still explained to Joe the way it worked.  If a Challenge truly went the way it was supposed to, and Methos forced his opponent to surrender to him mind, body, and soul, he didn’t just take his Challenger’s energy and power along with his head: he also got his memories.  The fact that Methos still didn’t know his “workout partner’s” identity even after winning the Challenge meant that something had gone very wrong.  Or at the very least, that the battle had been a lot closer than Joe wanted to contemplate.  “Did he at least tell you his name?”

 “No.  He didn’t.” Methos looked troubled.  “He didn’t say much anything at all, actually, until right before the end.  But then he said more than enough.  Jobey, I…”

“Shhh.”  Joe had heard the bathroom door open and close, evidence that the Sprout had given up looking for the medical kit in there.  They probably only had a few moments left.   “Damn.  We don’t have much time.  I just need you to tell me one more thing.”  He stepped in closer, running a gentle finger along his beloved’s neck.  “Whose blood is this?  His or yours?”

“Mine.”

“Yours?”  Joe stared, his earlier suspicions about the difficulty of the Challenge suddenly given terrible confirmation.  It was a horrible feeling, knowing that another Immortal had been close enough to Methos to wound him on the neck.  “You…ah…you don’t usually let them get that close.”

“Believe me, it wasn’t intentional,” Methos said ruefully.  “And it was my own fault, Jobey.  I forgot to take off my wedding ring before we started.  It got caught on the edge of his jacket sleeve; it took me a few moments to get free.  Gave him quite an opening.”  The troubled look returned to Methos’s face.  “Not that he really took advantage of it.  Jobey, I think…”

“Shhhh,” Joe hissed again.  He could clearly hear the pitter-patter of Milly-sized feet coming down the hall.  There was no time to waste.  “Give me your ring.”

“What?”

“You heard me.  Take it off and give it to me.” Joe’s jaw tightened, fear giving him the implacable immobility of a stone.  “We’re not going to take a chance on you ‘forgetting’ ever again.”

Methos stared at him.  He looked as though he wanted to argue—but with a quick glance down the hallway he tugged the ring off his finger and handed it to Joe, who slipped it into his jacket pocket. He was just in time.  Milly was already running back into the living room, first aid kit in hand. Which left Joe and Methos in something of a pickle, as Milly had already gotten a bandage out, and wanted to tend to her beloved Alex by herself. “Tell you what, Sprout,” Joe said with a calmness he didn’t feel.  “I’ll be the doctor, and you can be the nurse on this one, okay?  You can hand me stuff as I need it.”

Under Milly’s watchful eye—although between the two of them, Methos and Joe managed to keep the little girl on Methos’s non-bloody side, so she didn’t notice that they were, in fact, bandaging perfectly healthy skin—Joe carefully wiped the traces of blood away with a cotton pad and applied the bandage under Methos’s ear.   Milly then insisted on getting Alex an assortment of cookies and a glass of milk to help the healing process along, something Joe was sure that, under any other circumstances, he would have found to be entirely too cute and amusing for words.  Just at that moment, though, the little girl’s “mothering” was about as welcome as a noisy ex crashing a wedding party. 

But such was the power of the Pixie in their lives that Methos took the cookies without argument.  He was still eating fifteen minutes later when Gabriella finally arrived to pick up Milly, looking breathless and tired and apologizing profusely for being so late.  “It’s all right.  Seems to be in the air today,” Joe told her.  He wished her and the Sprout a good night and shut and locked the door. 

The second he had, Joe was once again striding across the floor and grabbing his rather startled husband by the shirt collar, hauling him up bodily off the couch for another kiss.  The minute the door had closed behind him his reaction to the evening had hit him like a brick, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with the need to prove that he and Methos were both alive in the most basic and sweaty way possible, right then and there, thank you very much.   Years ago, Methos had told him that, centuries of scandalized Watcher rumor to the contrary, most Immortals did NOT find taking a head to be an intense aphrodisiac.  Joe had long since discovered that this was true, at least so far as Methos was concerned.  However, if every Immortal’s mortal partner reacted to his or her lover’s periodic brushes with death with the same intensity that Joe did, Joe could totally understand how the rumors had gotten started.  He thrust his tongue deeply into his beloved’s mouth and pressed every inch of skin against him that he could, trying to eliminate every last molecule of space between them.

Much to Joe’s surprise, Methos responded with equal passion. The old Immortal made a low growling sound and swung them both around, slamming Joe firmly up against the living room wall.  Joe just had time to notice, in a half-hysterical kind of way, that Methos’s mouth tasted very strongly of Grandma Dawson’s cookies, before his lover dropped his lips to his neck and proceeded to ravage the skin there with equal fervency, sucking and nibbling hard enough to leave a bruise.  Joe didn’t try to stop him.  He just took advantage of the change in position to insinuate a hand between their bodies, running it down over Methos’s hip to his groin.  Joe’s eyes widened.  Methos wasn’t just hard—he was hurtin’ hard, cock rigid and seriously threatening to tear the seams out of Methos’s dress pants.  Wincing in sympathy, Joe quickly worked open Methos’s zipper for him, and when Methos shuddered and took a half step back, Joe stared openly at what he found.  “Jesus,” Joe said, more out of shock than desire.  “You had this the whole time the Sprout was feeding you cookies?”

“Of course not.”  Methos said tartly.  His voice was very strained.  “I fought it down for her.  But it took about every last ounce of control that I had.”  Joe ran an experimental finger down Methos’s shaft, marveling at the searing heat that almost threatened to burn his hand, and Methos hissed as if pained.  “Joe.  God.  Please…”

“Yeah, okay.  It’s okay.  I’ve got you.”   Joe gave Methos’s cock another experimental caress, this time with the flat of his palm.  “What do you need?”

“You.  In the bedroom.  Now.”

“Yeah,” Joe said, nodding.  “Yeah, I’m all for that.”

They hurried down the hall together.

***

Sometime later, as Joe lay sprawling on their bed staring at the ceiling with an indecently satisfied grin on his face, he thought that there really were some advantages to being a disabled war vet.  With his injuries and limp, all he had to do if he was walking funny in the morning was mumble something about ‘Nam and his old war wounds acting up, and nobody would bat an eye.  They certainly wouldn’t think to attribute his difficulties to his virile young husband.  At least, they wouldn’t as long as they didn’t come into their bedroom, which looked as if a small war had been fought within its walls.  Joe lazily surveyed the damage, reaching up a hand to trace the wall behind their headboard; they’d knocked into it so hard that quite a bit of the plaster had crumbled.  “’Kay,” he said happily, love and amusement filling his words.  “I don’t mind going shopping to replace the clothes you tore off me.  Really, I don’t. But you’re the one who’s going to have to walk into the Rodriguez’s hardware store tomorrow to get the replacement drywall.  No way am I going to explain why we need to repair one of our bedroom walls.”

Methos, who was sprawled at an oblique angle across the bed with his head near Joe’s feet, opened one eye lazily.  “And there was me thinking we’d invite their eldest boy in to do the repairs,” he said.  “He seems to enjoy working with paint.  We could give the lad a chance to put his hard-won skills to work.”

Joe snorted.  “Give him the chance to spray-paint hate slogans all over our walls, you mean,” he said.  “No, thank you.  Get your ass up here.” 

Joe stretched out his arms.  After a moment, Methos managed to convince his weary body to turn and crawled up the bed to lie back down at Joe’s side.  A bit of plaster dust shook loose from the wall as he settled in, raining down to spot Methos’s dark hair.  Joe smiled and wiped it away.  “Thank you,” he said tenderly.  “That was…well.  I’m not sure just *what* that was, to tell you the truth.  But it was incredible.  And exactly what I needed.”

“Did I hurt you?”

“Nah,” Joe said, shaking his head.  “I mean, yeah, maybe just a little bit.  I’ll definitely still feel it tomorrow, but not in a bad way.” He grinned.  “Probably just enough to give me a hard-on at a really inappropriate time.” 

Methos nodded, accepting this.   There had been a time in their relationship when he wouldn’t have, when the doctor in him would have insisted on Joe letting him check, but not anymore.  They’d been together long enough for him to know that Joe would speak up if he was really hurt.  Joe chuckled mirthfully.  “And there was you, telling me that Immortals finding Quickenings to be an intense aphrodisiac was just a bad Watcher myth,” he said.  “Guess we proved you wrong on that one, huh?”

Much to his surprise, Methos didn’t smile.  He just sat up, pulling his knees into his chest awkwardly.  “It wasn’t the Quickening, Joe.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No.  Or at least it wasn’t all that.  A large part of it was just…terror.”  He saw Joe’s blank expression and sighed.  “This wasn’t an ordinary Challenge.  My opponent was carrying this.”

 Methos reached down to the floor, snagged his abandoned, half-torn to pieces pants with a finger, then took a small red wad of cloth from the pocket.  Not understanding, Joe took the little bundle of red from it and shook it out. And suddenly the room went very cold.  Because, unfurled, the fabric was about the size of a small handkerchief—and embroidered in the middle in glittering gold thread was a stylized letter K.  The K was surrounded by a carefully hand-sewn circle of tiny silver beads.  “Oh,” Joe said, throat suddenly too dry for speech.  “Oh, *damn*.”


	3. Chapter 3

The master bathroom in Methos and Joe’s Las Cruces home was a very nice place.  It wasn’t as luxuriant as the bathroom “young Adam” had once built for Joe in Paris.  There simply hadn’t been room for that.  But the shower was still disability-friendly and big enough for two, even if it was a bit of a squeeze—and at this particular moment, Joe didn’t mind squeezing one little bit.  He needed to be close to Methos, to wash away the Challenge with his own hands.  And to check over every inch of his skin and make sure he was unharmed. 

And even though Methos’s Immortality meant that this impulse was a completely irrational one, Methos had made no objection.  He’d let Joe care for him, even sitting on the shower floor in front of Joe’s bench so that Joe could shampoo his hair.  Now that the last bit of lather had been sprayed away, Joe had switched off the water and was treating his love to an old-fashioned back rub, marveling at the tension he could still feel clenching within the massive muscles.  “God.  Some of these knots are the size of walnuts,” he said, gently rubbing one located just below Methos’s left shoulder blade.  “Doesn’t seem right.  If Immortality can heal sprains and broken bones, it ought to be able to take care of these, too.”

“It can’t cure anything for which the original cause is still present, Jobey,” Methos said tiredly.  “Like knife wounds.  If you stab an Immortal through the heart, he’ll stay dead until you take out the weapon.  This is the same principle.  Those knots weren’t caused by an injury during the fight; they’re caused by tension, plain and simple.  And that….” He nodded towards the bathroom counter.  “I’m afraid is going to be with us for quite a while.”

“Yeah.  I know.” 

Joe looked past the foggy bathroom doors to the counter.  There, lying in a heap on the tile, was the scrap of crimson cloth.  It looked quite incongruous there, the glimmering gold thread and shimmering silver beads contrasting strangely with their prosaic collection of toothpaste, deodorants, and mouthwash.  Once again, the normal and the abnormal were rubbing elbows, right in the middle of Joe’s bathroom counter.  He shook his head, then went back to the task at hand, working at Methos’s tired muscles with renewed vigor.  “In a way, I guess I should feel honored,” Joe said as he rubbed.  “I never thought I’d actually see one of these in person.  I mean, I’ve seen the drawings in several of the Chronicles, and there’s supposed to be one from the last Crusade preserved in a vacuum-sealed chamber somewhere deep in the Watcher Archive.  But I never saw one with my own eyes.”

Methos turned his head, looked up at him curiously from under soaking wet bangs.  “You know what it is, then.”

“The Bloody Favor?  The Circle Crest? Yeah.  Of course I do.”  Joe sighed.  “Every couple of hundred years—never more than six, never less two—a couple of dozen Immortals that have otherwise led completely peaceful and ordinary lives suddenly go completely bonkers.  They abandon everyone and everything they love to go out on the road, hunting down and Challenging each and every Immortal they can find.  When they win, they simply pick up their sword and move on, heading off to the next fight.  But when they fail, their last act is usually to grab this token and hold it to their hearts right before they lose their heads.”  Joe shuddered.  “Not that they lose very often.  The Immortals that carry this symbol tend to be extraordinary fighters, dedicated and absolutely ruthless.  The last time, so many Immortals lost their heads at their hands that a lot of Watchers genuinely believed the Gathering had begun.”   He paused, let his hands drop to his thighs.  “It’s happening again, isn’t it.”

“It seems that way.”

“Yeah, well.”  Joe shrugged, attempting to be philosophical.  “I suppose it’s about time.  The last time it happened was around 1590.  Just before MacLeod was born.”  He looked again at the little smear of crimson, bright enough to be reflected in the bathroom mirror despite the steam.  “I just wish I knew what the ‘K’ was supposed to symbolize.  Watchers have been wondering about that for thousands of years.  Whether it stands for a name, or a religious movement, or if it’s even a letter at all.  It might just be an abstract design…”

“No.  It’s a letter, Joe.  A letter K.”  Methos slowly got to his feet, went to grab a towel.  His movements were slow, pained.  “It’s the secret crest of Kahvin the Holy.”

Joe blinked.  “Kahvin the Holy?  You mean that monk who ran Le Sanctuaire des Immortels during the Dark Ages?”  

“Yes.  This—“  Methos nodded at the scrap of silk.  “is the favor Kahvin gave to each of his students when they left him.”  Methos’s face settled into harsh, frozen lines.  “None of them ever went into battle without it.”

 “But that makes no sense,” Joe said, frowning. “Kahvin’s been dead for almost five centuries.  And he was a monk, a holy man.  Not a warrior.”

“Was he?”

“Well, yeah,” Joe said, surprised.  “For more than a thousand years, Kahvin ran his Sanctuary.  It was a bit like the monastery Brother Paul ran before Kalas took his head: a refuge for any Immortal who needed a break from the Game.  Immortals would come to him, study for a few decades or centuries, and then go back into the world.  And when they did, they were always considerably better people than when they’d left it.  They all went on to found schools, run hospitals, start charities for the poor, that sort of thing.   Why, Kahvin never even set one foot off of Holy Ground until that day in 1693, when some kind of crazy bug bit him and he went out the Sanctuary gates to offer his head to the Kurgan.”  Joe shook his head.  “The Watchers at the time were all shocked.  If you read the Chronicle entries from that year, you can see it.  Nearly every Watcher in southern Europe mentioned Kahvin’s death multiple times, and you could tell they were all mourning his loss.  I don’t think there was a single Immortal whose death affected so many Watchers until Darius.”

Methos had turned his back to him.  He had his hands on the bathroom counter and was leaning his weight onto them, head bowed as he looked down at the Bloody Favor.  With his hair still dripping, he suddenly looked both very young and very vulnerable, despite the awesome strength in the muscles shifting beneath his skin.  “Kahvin was no Darius, Jobey,” he said tiredly.  “Believe me.”

Despite the warmth in the room, Joe suddenly felt a chill.  “You knew him.”

Methos nodded.  “I was his librarian.”

And the strange thing was, the second Methos said it, Joe knew he was telling the truth.  Because simply hearing the words aloud stirred flashes of Methos’s memory in Joe, memories Joe hadn’t even known he possessed.  He saw high stone walls and peaceful cloister gardens, long shelves of hand bound books glowing in filtered sunlight, a rough wooden table, a woman’s joyful smile.  And with the pictures came feelings: an almost overwhelmingly sweet sensation of peace and joy, followed by the ache of crushing loss.  There was no way for Joe to make sense of the images.  He’d have to wait for Methos to help him piece them into some kind of storyline.  But for now, the feeling of grief was more than enough to tell him it was something he needed to pay close attention to.  Joe closed his eyes for a moment, letting the pictures and sensations wash through him like a tide, and when they settled he looked at his beloved with empathy.  “Bring me a towel,” he said quietly.

Methos did.  He stood by while Joe carefully dried his hair and skin, then silently handed Joe his legs and harness. “’Kay,” Joe said, as he finished padding, strapping, and buckling himself back into mobility.  He donned a terrycloth robe.  “You put clean sheets on the bed.  I’ll get us one thermos full of a coffee and another one full of scotch and meet you there in five minutes.  I think you have a story to tell.”

***

Most marriages that last eventually develop a protocol for the more serious type of discussions, the ones that are to everyday conversation what nuclear peace talks are to routine government budget meetings.  Some couples have them at the kitchen table.  Others go to a quiet restaurant or take a walk around a nearby park.  Joe’s own parents had kept 2 lawn chairs and an electric tea kettle out in the garage next to his Dad’s old Chevy, something the adolescent Joe had found weird beyond imagining, but which the adult Joe understood with all his heart.  You had to have a ritual for some conversations, a way of stepping out of normal life.  It gave you something definite to do, a certain place to go and certain ritual to follow when everything else seemed very uncertain. It focused the attention, told you both that this was Serious with a capital S.  And it reassured both partners that neither one was going to bail for the duration…

In Joe and Methos’s case, Joe had discovered that these sorts of conversations happened best in bed.  Right after sex usually worked best, but even if the timing wasn’t right for that, they tended to adjourn to the bedroom anyway.  The bed was their refuge, their island of safety from the world, the one place it was safe to be completely honest about the rather unique circumstances of their lives.  So fifteen minutes after Joe had left the bathroom, the two of them were once again in the bedroom, thermoses on the nightstand and two coffee mugs at the ready.  (It would have been faster, since the coffee was already made, but Joe had found the long-forgotten vanilla ice cream still out on the counter, which had melted and dribbled and made such a glorious mess Joe didn’t want to wait to clean it up.)  Methos was sprawled, looking pensive, at the foot of the bed. Joe touched his shoulder comfortingly before he took his own place at the head.  “Okay,” he said, settling back into the huge pile of pillows he’d propped against the headboard.  “I think you’d better start at the beginning.  When did you first meet Kahvin the Holy?”

“In 1233.”

Not quite 800 years ago.  By Methos’s standards, that might not have been exactly yesterday, but it wasn’t all that long ago, either.  “And how did you meet him?”

“Darius sent me.” 

“Darius knew Kahvin?”

“Knew of him, anyway,” Methos answered. “I don’t think they ever met in person, since neither one ever left Holy Ground.  But yes, they certainly knew of each other, and corresponded often.  They lived too close together and had too many interests in common not to.  And one of those interests was preserving books.”  Methos saw Joe’s carefully lifted eyebrow and hastened to reassure him.  “No, not Chronicles.  Kahvin was never in on the Great Secret of the Watchers, thank God.  But both he and Darius were old enough to remember what happened after Rome fell, just how much knowledge was lost, and they were both doing what they could to prevent it from happening again.  Darius’s library was quite extensive.  Kahvin’s was….extraordinary.”  Methos shook his head, momentarily wearing the slightly awed, wondering expression of the true bibliophile. “We were about 200 years into the Crusades at that point, Jobey, and the books being brought back to Europe from the Holy Land were amazing.  Texts on astronomy, on physics, on math…whole new worlds of thought and science were being opened up, and old ones rediscovered.  But they needed to be translated and copied if they weren’t going to be lost all over again.”  Methos’s expression soured.  “That’s where I came in.”

“Darius sent you to the Sanctuary to translate some of Kahvin’s books?”

“That’s how it started, yes.”  Methos nodded.  “I didn’t want to go, of course.  My policy has always been to avoid as much interaction with other Immortals as possible, and the thought of going to a place where several dozen were all living under the same roof…well.  Holy Ground or not, it struck me as a very bad idea.  But-- I owed Darius a favor.  More than one, truth be told.  And Darius was right when he said I was the only person who could do the job.  Who else could translate as many of the Middle Eastern languages as I could, especially with any hope of accuracy?  So I went, intending to do the job quickly and get the hell out.  And then, much to my own surprise…I stayed.”

“Why?”

Methos gave a helpless shrug.  “I’m not sure I can really explain,” he said.  “Part of it was the books, of course.  Kahvin’s library was truly unparalleled, and he badly needed a librarian.  None of the other Immortals in the Sanctuary really understood what kind of gems were hidden there, or had any idea how to care for them.”  He sighed.  “But more of it was Kahvin himself.  He really had the most incredible charisma.  When you were in his presence, he had a way of making you feel…I’m not sure I can describe it.  Like you were a good and valuable person, whatever your personal knowledge or opinions on that point might be.  You just instinctively wanted to live up to his expectations, be the person he thought you could be.    And he could make you feel…welcomed.  Part of the community.  Part of something bigger.”  Methos looked pensively at the ceiling.  “It’s the rare person who can do that simply by being in the room with you.  Mortals who have that gift tend to become great leaders, either military or political.  Immortals—“  He shivered.  “Maybe it’s for the best that most Immortals don’t have it.  But Kahvin did.  And I was fascinated in spite of myself.”

“So you stayed.”

“Yes.”  A wave of sadness rolled off of Methos, so palpable Joe’s heart began to ache in silent sympathy.  He had no idea what his beloved was going to tell him next…but whatever it was, he knew it wasn’t going to be good.  “Yes.  I stayed.  For almost ten years.”

***

_Autumnal Equinox, 1233_

Methos had a bad feeling about this.

He’d always disliked island monasteries, and not just because you had to cross water to get to them.  Once upon a time, he’d spent a few years on Skellig Michael, off the coast of Ireland.  He’d been going through a phase where all he really wanted was to spend a few decades in quiet study, safely tucked away from the Game—and the monastery there, located as it was upon an isolated island made up entirely of Holy Ground, had seemed like the ideal place to find it.  Alas, an unexpected death—a particularly clumsy wood-working novice had fallen on him with a chisel—and an even more unexpected revival—at least, unexpected to the holy brother who’d eventually yanked the chisel out of Methos’s chest, when he’d been right in the middle of preparing Methos’s body for burial—had proven the fallacy of that.  Convinced he was a witch or worse, the good brothers had been all for burning Methos on the spot…and Methos had been forced to take a long, long ocean swim in order to save his skin.  The plain truth was, any place that was too “safe” and too protected from the world was also much too difficult to escape from when necessary.  The thought of living anywhere without at least three built-in escape routes made Methos extremely itchy.

At least Kahvin’s famous—famous amongst Immortals, anyhow-- Sanctuaire des Immortels wasn’t technically on an island.  Built on a huge outcropping of stone surrounded by miles of sandy beach, the Sanctuary was only completely cut off from the mainland at times of high tide.  Unfortunately for Methos, it almost may as well have been.  That sandy beach was so full of sinkholes and weak places as to be almost completely impassable without an experienced escort.  Even the young brother who had met Methos at the shore, who knew the way so well that he was simply known as “Guide” within the Sanctuary, told Methos that he never tried to cross the sands without a long stick, which he used to prod and test the ground ahead for quicksand with every step.  The beach was so unstable that trying to cross it in any other way was a sure recipe for disaster.  Cart wheels were next to useless in the soft sand, and horses were almost as bad:  even a tiny sinkhole could cause a horse to spook and blindly plunge into worse trouble a few short feet away.  More than one traveler, the Guide had informed Methos sadly, had been lost to the sands forever in this way.

Which was why Methos, accompanied by a large donkey-drawn wagon full of books, had chosen not to cross the beach at all.  Instead, he’d waited for high tide, and was now sailing to the Sanctuary on a small, rickety wooden ferry, crowding uncomfortably close to his bad tempered donkey in order to avoid getting even more uncomfortably close to the edge.  Methos’s stomach was flip-flopping dangerously, and he knew his face was turning green.  So green that the Guide, who had been chattering amiably about how smooth the water was that day, looked at him in concern.  “Not that it makes much difference, if you are unused to the sea,” he finished, giving Methos a sympathetic smile.  “Forgive me, Librarian.   I forget that clear skies and smooth waters mean little if you were born without the stomach for the waves. Hang in there.  The crossing won’t take long.”

“I certainly hope not,” Methos muttered. 

The gentle up-and-down motion of the craft was making him dizzy, and the rich, ripe scent of the donkey’s fur in his nose didn’t help matters any.  For a second Methos considered moving away from it, but there really wasn’t any other place to stand.  The cartload of books had burdened the little ferry to its full capacity.  For the hundredth time, Methos questioned Darius’s wisdom in sending so many.  The cart’s cargo was priceless, filled with dozens of volumes that Darius’s mortal brothers had spent more than three centuries in copying.  It seemed foolish to send the product of so many years of work to Kahvin sight unseen, without any proof of what books he might have to trade in return. Oh, Kahvin had sent Darius a detailed inventory of his library, back when he and Darius had first conceived this journey, but Methos was far too cynical to trust in that.  If the inventory bore any true relation to reality, Methos would voluntarily eat his own quill. 

But Darius had insisted.  The point of this trip, he said, wasn’t to increase his own collection—though of course Darius would be very happy if that happened.  Rather, it was to help safeguard the books he already had from disaster.  A precious book that had been copied and had found a home in another library was a book that was twice as hard to destroy, to lose forever to raiders or fire or flood.  And Methos could already see that the very things that made him nervous about the Sanctuary as a temporary home for Methos made it the ideal long-term home for the books.  From his heaving perch aboard the ferry, Methos could clearly see the high stone walls that surrounded the place.  Tall and forbidding, they gave the impression of a coiled dragon surrounding the keep.  “You people certainly don’t go out of your way to welcome guests, do you,” he said under his breath.

Guide smiled serenely, the expression lightening his boyish face.  “Truly, we don’t have all that many guests to welcome, Librarian.” He was a young Immortal, perhaps only fifty or sixty years old, but his Presence rang with an unusual clarity, the pure buzz of an Immortal who has spent his entire life on Holy Ground.  Not even Darius’s aura possessed that sweet, crystalline tone.  Methos liked Guide; it was impossible not to like him, even with Methos’s stomach currently trying to find a new home for itself in his throat.   He just wished that the boy could do something to make the ferry go faster. 

“We are very lucky,” the young Immortal continued.  “There is no reason for anyone to bother us here at all.  We are far too small and cold an island to be coveted for farmland, and too far west to be of any possible use in crossing the Channel.  Not even the Church cares much about what we do.  As long as we send in our regular tithes, which Kahvin makes sure we always do, we are pretty much left on our own.”  Guide gave Methos a radiant smile. “It is a good place you have come to, Librarian.  A place free from prying eyes and any kind of interference.  Here, our kind can truly live and worship our creator as we were meant to do.”

“Uh-huh.”  Methos crossed his arms more tightly over his heaving stomach.  He gestured at the forbidding wall with one elbow.  “Your defenses tell a different story, Guide.”

“I suppose it does look imposing.”  Guide smiled at the wall.  “It should.  Those walls took more than fifty years to plan, and nearly a hundred more to build.  But Kahvin had them raised more to protect us from the ocean winds than from raiders.  Our gardens are extensive, extensive enough to provide for almost all our needs—but they wouldn’t be, if we allowed the cold salt wind to nip the plants.  Besides.  The white stone absorbs the sunshine during the day, then gives the heat to our crops at night.  We can grow a few fresh vegetables even in the heart of winter.”  Methos didn’t reply, but his cynicism must have showed, for the other Immortal laughed.  “And you are skeptical,” he said.  “Never mind, Librarian.  Soon enough, you will see.  For now…”  The youngster closed his eyes, breathing in the ocean air as if it was the sweetest ambrosia.  “There.  Can you feel it?”

It took Methos a moment to catch onto what the young man went.  Then, suddenly, it hit him.  Presence.  And not just the Presence of one other Immortal, nor two or three, but dozens.  Methos gasped, and clutched at the already extremely irritated donkey for support.  Instantly, Guide wore an expression of deep sympathy.  “And I see I must beg your pardon once again,” he said, reaching up to sooth the donkey, who gave a loud snort and relaxed into his touch.  “It has been so many years since I last escorted a stranger across these waters that I forgot to give you warning.  Forgive me, Librarian; I know it can be hard to stand if you’re not used to it.  I was the same, when I first crossed the sands.”

“God!”  Methos let the beast go and pressed his hands over his ears.  It was a childish gesture, one which Methos’s mind knew wouldn’t help him in the slightest, but his body overruled him.  It was desperate to try anything to shut out the horrible sound.  He hadn’t sensed so many Immortals all in one place since…since…no.  It was better not to think about that. “How many?” he gasped.

“There are more than forty of us,” Guide answered quietly.  “Forty-three Immortal souls, all sharing this one blessed patch of Holy Ground.  Forty-four, now, including you. But do not try to pick out each individual voice in the crowd, Librarian.  That way lies madness.”  He looked at Methos compassionately.  “Just listen to the whole of the chorus, instead.   Hear the way they blend together.”

Methos gaped at him, his entire soul being flayed raw by the overwhelming noise.  And then, abruptly, he understood what Guide meant.  The forty separate Presences suddenly became just one song, all the individual voices blending together in harmony.  And it was beautiful, perhaps one of the most beautiful things Methos had ever experienced.  He gazed on the little island with a new, awed respect, a prickling of tears coming to his eyes. 

Next to him, Guide nodded in satisfaction.  “Good,” he said.  “I think you will be happy here, Librarian.  Who knows?  Perhaps, like many here, you will eventually discover that this is the place that you’ve been searching for all your life.”  He touched Methos on the arm.  “Come.  Let me welcome you home.”

***

Back in their bedroom, the images of high white walls and a gently waving sea gradually faded from Joe eyes, replaced by the far-more familiar surroundings of their bedroom walls.  Joe clutched at the bedcovers, grabbing a thick handful of blanket to steady himself.  Yes, over the years he had become accustomed to the odd sensation of getting glimpses of Methos’s memory whenever Methos talked about his past.  But he most definitely wasn’t used to seeing them with this much clarity.  For a moment it had felt as if Joe had actually been there on that ferry, feeling the roughly-hewn boards heaving beneath his feet and smelling the unhappy donkey’s scent clustering thickly within his nostrils. More to the point, he’d felt the wild, incredulous hope that had been born in Methos’s heart the moment the Sanctuary’s song had first resolved itself within his senses--a fragile hope, but an overwhelming one.  Joe looked over at his beloved now.  Methos was still sprawled over the bedclothes, to the casual eye completely at his ease, but Joe knew better.  “You’ve always been looking for that, haven’t you,” he said softly.  “A place to call home.”

“Ever since I lost my first one, Jobey.  Longer than you can possibly imagine.” 

Joe nodded.  He was not offended by this, as once upon a time he would have been.  Methos was not insulting his powers of imagination or empathy, just stating a simple fact.  It *was* longer than Joe could imagine.  The vast distance of time Methos had travelled was something that was simply too big for Joe’s mortal mind to contain, and he had long since come to terms with that.  “Something tells me that Le Sanctuaire wasn’t really it, though.”

“No.”  Methos answered.  “But for a while?  I honestly thought it might be. Oh, I was skeptical, of course.  There have been many attempts at starting Immortal communities over the centuries, but they never last for long—and when they fail, they tend to fail spectacularly, with heads rolling everywhere and blood drenching the floors.  Immortals are predatory animals, Jobey, not social ones. Our instinct is to defend our territories, not to form packs.  For short periods of time—maybe a year, maybe a century--we can override that instinct.  But it’s always there.  It’s why I never lived in the same monastery as Darius, even though we spent several lifetimes working together from a distance.  Those instincts are just too powerful.”

“Robert and Gina Vallicourt seem to manage.”

A faint smile touched Methos’s lips.  “You still haven’t figured that one out, Jobey?”

“Figured what out?”

“Ah, well.  I can’t blame you.  I didn’t put it together myself until just recently.  And I don’t have proof.  But I’m fairly sure I’m right.  Their Quickenings don’t clash because Robert surrendered his to Gina.”

Joe stared.  “What?  You mean…”

“Yes, Jobey.  Just like I did to MacLeod.”  A sigh.  “Although they both seem much happier with the arrangement than MacLeod and I ever did.  It’s probably easier if the Immortal who surrenders decides from the very beginning not to fight his fate—and from what Robert’s Watcher wrote at the time, Robert truly did fall in love with Gina at first sight.  Or maybe he just naturally has a much more subordinate nature than I do.  In any event, the signs are there, once you know what you’re looking for.  Robert surrendered his Quickening to Gina the moment they met.  Gina, rather than taking his head, decided to keep him around.  And there you have it.” Methos’s lip twisted sardonically.  “The true foundation of a happy Immortal marriage.”

“But—“ Joe was flabbergasted.  “But you couldn’t take any heads after you surrendered to MacLeod.  Robert—“

“Hasn’t either, I think you’ll find,” Methos replied.  “Oh, over the years a lot of Challengers have stormed the Vallicourt estate in the dead of night, never to be seen again.  The Watchers have always assumed that it was Robert who dispatched them.  But I have my doubts.  And if you go back through the Chronicles, you’ll find that every time a Watcher was actually able to witness one of those fights, Gina was the one who carried the field.”

“I never…I had no idea.”

“No.  Almost nobody does.”  Methos looked sad.  “It explains why marriage between Immortals is so rare, though.  If the only way to truly be content in each other’s presence is for one half of the couple to submit.”

“But then…”  Joe paused.  “What about Amanda and Nick?”

“Nick still hasn’t taken his first head, Joe.  To any Immortal who has, that means that his Presence still feels immature, like a child’s.  Our instincts just don’t read him as a threat.  It’s what allows Teacher and students to coexist while the student is still learning.”

“But when Nick does someday win a Challenge…”

“Then I suspect his relationship with Amanda will get even more interesting than it already is.”

It was a fascinating field of discussion, and Joe knew he would want to come back to it later.  But right now they had other things to talk about it. “Okay,” he said.  “We’re getting off track.  Why don’t I just stipulate that it’s really rare to find an Immortal who has managed to live every day in another Immortal’s company for more than…oh, maybe 50 years or so.   Even Brother Paul’s best-behaved monks usually left his monastery in half that time.  And, well, we both know what eventually happened there.”  Methos nodded stiffly.  Joe frowned.  “I’m not sure I buy that it’s entirely instinctive—like you guys are somehow doomed to part or fight to the death, no matter what.  You know me.  I’m the original incurable optimist; I gotta believe that there’s a loophole somewhere.  But I understand why *you* would think there isn’t.”  Again, Methos gave a tight, stiff little nod.  Joe looked at him compassionately.  “And I also understand what seeing that many Immortals living together in peace would have meant to you.  You believed Kahvin might have found that loophole.”

Methos shook his head vehemently. “I didn’t *believe* it.  Not really.  You know me, Jobey.  If you’re the original incurable optimist, then I’m the original incurable cynic.  Believing in anything absolutely just isn’t in my character. But I must admit that I…hoped.  And as the years went by, I guess I…came to hope even more.”   

Joe nodded softly, gesturing for his beloved to go on.  “Kahvin really did have some very interesting ideas about just what it took for a large group of Immortals to live without conflict,” Methos said.  “It helped, of course, that all the solid ground on the island was Holy.  To fight a Challenge, two Immortals would have had to leave the walls and cross the sands unguided—something even the most hot-headed amongst us were very loath to do.  But with the way Kahvin structured the rules and customs of the place, it almost never came to that.  To be a member of his Sanctuary, an Immortal had follow two rules faithfully, in addition to keeping all the other laws and customs common to a Christian religious community of that time.  First, he had to give up his name.  Everyone apart from Kahvin was called by the title of their job in the community—Librarian, Groomsman, Gardener, Cook.  Names were only shared between close friends, and they were never, ever used, except in private.  Second, no Immortal was ever allowed to mention how old he was, or say anything about his former life.  To mention his own past, however casually, was considered the rudest of rude behavior.  And to ask somebody else outright about theirs was grounds for expulsion.” 

Joe blinked.  “That sounds…difficult to live up to.”

“Only until you got used to it.” Methos replied seriously.  “I know it sounds extreme, Jobey.  But in practice it meant this: the moment an Immortal walked through Kahvin’s gates, his past ceased to exist.    Instead his whole identity became focused on the community, where he fit into it, what services he could perform.  It probably would never have worked in a mortal society…”

“I don’t think it would.”

“No.  But amongst Immortals, the chance to start over so completely had an incredible lure.  I felt it, and I was fascinated by how strongly everyone else did, too.  By how happy and peaceful the community really was.”  Methos’s face settled into sour, unhappy lines.  “And it was too good to be true, of course.  I knew that.  Immortals simply aren’t built to live side by side in peace, not for any length of time.  I think a large part of the reason I hung around for so long was just to find out what the fly in the ointment really was.  But a part of me also wanted to believe that it really was possible after all.  So…I stayed.”

Joe was frowning.  The more Methos spoke, the more images were coming together in his head—and at the center of them was one person.  Not Kahvin, who Joe could also see, a smiling grey-haired monk who radiated joy and comfort like a candle.  Somebody else.  “I think you stayed out of more than a desire to observe an interesting social experiment, Methos,” Joe said, a little breathlessly as visions of long dark hair and a hauntingly beautiful smile filled his head.  “I think there was another reason.  A woman.”

And Methos just nodded. His expression was heartbreakingly sad.  “Yes, Jobey.  There was a woman, too.”


	4. Chapter 4

~ _Le Sanctuaire des Immortels_ _, 1233~_

“The devil!  Something must have spooked him!”

“Stand back! Everyone get out of his way!”

“Forget about staying out of his way—you’re Immortal, you’ll heal!  *SAVE THE BOOKS!*”

That last sentence was not shouted by Methos.  It was bellowed by the man Methos would later come to know as Stable Master, who along with his Third Apprentice Groom had come to meet him and Guide at the dock.  But the cry so closely echoed Methos’s own sentiments that it might as well have come from his own throat.  The long-suffering donkey had, apparently, suffered all that he intended to.  As the two stablemen led him up the narrow, precarious pile of sloping stones that served the Sanctuary as a dock, the animal had begun to buck and bray.  And the cart had started rocking precariously, threatening to tumble both it and its precious cargo into the sea. 

There was no time to waste in thought.  The two stablemen scrambled for the cart, throwing both their weights against it in a desperate attempt to keep it upright while Guide fought to undo the donkey’s harness.  But whatever other gifts the young Immortal might have had, cart-craft was clearly not one of them, and it was obvious that his efforts to free the wagon from the rearing beast were going to take much too long to be of any use.  Methos made a mad dive for the ornery donkey’s reigns. 

It was a move made with considerably more passion than sense.  Even if Methos *had* managed to lay his hands upon the leather, it wasn’t as if merely gripping the reigns was magically going to give him control over the frightened animal.  But he never even got close enough to try.  The rock underfoot was slippery with algae and ocean spray; Methos skidded and went down.  And caught a sharp kick to the head from one of the donkey’s front hooves as he did. 

It wasn’t enough to kill him.  It was enough, however, to make a brilliant show of flashing lights dance before his eyes, and as Methos’s body crashed down onto the rock the rest of the world got very quiet.  Methos was aware of the continued thrashing of the donkey and the frantic shouting of the other men, but it all seemed very far away—like something happening on a distant stage, completely removed from reality as he knew it.  What *did* suddenly seem real, realer than real, was the Song of the Sanctuary.  Methos still hadn’t had enough time to accustom himself to it, that overwhelming press of all those other Immortal Presences. Now the song rose up around him with more force than ever, making everything else fall away…including his own carefully honed sense of self.  He felt everything that made him *Methos* start to slip away, and was too dazed by the sweet, seductive peace of the Sanctuary’s melody to even care.  All he was conscious of was a slow, wondering thought that this must be what it felt like to finally lose a Challenge…

And an angel appeared in his vision.

No.  Not an angel.  Just an Immortal woman, so petite as to barely come up to Methos’s shoulder, gowned and veiled in a nun’s simple garb of rough homespun wool.  But with her arrival, the Song of the Sanctuary within the courtyard suddenly had a brand new note—and that note changed everything.  It was a bit like a modern conductor striking a tuning fork amidst an orchestra tuning up.  The cacophony of Immortal signatures ceased, and the chaos within the courtyard stilled. The shouting men ceased shouting.  The bucking donkey froze in its tracks.  Even the strange flickers of light behind Methos’s eyes abruptly disappeared.  He blinked, something in him following the hum of that new Presence like a beacon.  And abruptly found himself back within the world of normal sound and sight. 

The woman was crouching over him, her small hands still on his shoulders.  With a start, Methos realized that she must have somehow dragged him off the dock and through the Sanctuary’s gates into the small inner courtyard, well out of the way of the donkey’s path.  “There now,” she said when she saw his eyes focus on her face.  “That’s better.  But lay still for a moment anyway, Librarian.  It will take a few moments for both your wind and wits to fully return.”

She was undoubtedly right. Methos could feel the exceedingly unpleasant sensation of bones shifting as they healed within his broken skull.  Still, he tried to lift himself from the ground.  “The books…”

The dark brown eyes behind the veil sparkled humorously.  “Ah, you really are a librarian, then,” the woman said approvingly.  “Only a true practitioner of your art would be more concerned for a cartload of books than he would be for his own skull!  Well, perhaps you are right.  As the Stable Master said, you’re Immortal; your skull will heal, and the books would not.  But lie still for a few more minutes anyway, Librarian.  If I can have your promise not to dash straight back into the fray, I will attend to your treasures myself.”

She touched his shoulder comfortingly.  The touch was gentle, but even so it sent a fresh wave of her Presence over and around and through him--and Methos was shocked.  It was *old*, that Presence, perhaps even older than Methos himself—something he had long since given up on ever finding within the world again.   He stared, mouth gaping open.  “* _Who are you_?*”

It was hard to tell with the veil still draping her face, but he thought that she smiled.  “Like you, I suspect, Librarian, I have been known by many names,” she answered.  “But the most important and the most blessed is the one I am known by within these walls.  You may call me Mother.” And with that she straightened up and left him, striding across the courtyard toward donkey.

She removed her veil as she went, folding it neatly and draping it over her shoulders, and suddenly Methos had fresh reason to be shocked.  The shape of her face and the dark toasted color of her skin reminded him of one or two traders he’d once known, men who had sailed their simple boats with a supernatural skill and said they’d come from a mysterious land far, far to the south.  But he could honestly say he’d never seen a woman of their tribe before.  And he’d certainly never seen one whose face had born so many intricate scars, deeply—and deliberately--cut into the flesh covering both her cheekbones.  An ordinary man might have instantly turned his eyes away from those scars, seeing only the way they marred the near-perfect beauty underneath.  Methos, who was most definitely *not* an ordinary man, instantly saw much more…and what he saw left him both humbled and awed.  He watched, mouth still hanging open, as the woman approached the donkey and stood with it nose to nose, clearly allowing the beast to breathe in the scent of her breath.  Then, abruptly, she dropped to her knees at its feet. 

It was a move that caused every man in the yard to scream out in alarm.  Methos shouted himself, though the cry made his battered head ring alarmingly and flair with pain.  “Mother!” gasped the Stable Master, and Methos could clearly see his anguish.  The cart had jounced backwards during the donkey’s thrashings, and it was only the fact that the Stable Master and his apprentice had thrown their entire body weights against the rear wheels that was keeping it from sliding off the rocks into the surf.  His face was sweaty, alive with fear for the woman he could not leave the cart to help.  “Mother, get back!  The beast is bedeviled…you’ll be trampled to death…” 

The woman didn’t even bother to look up.  “Oh, and *that* misfortune has never befallen me before, oh no!” she called back with a laugh. “Be easy, Stable Master.  It will not, I think, happen to me today.  Look.” 

She swept her hands over the donkey’s leg from knee to hoof, making soothing noises as she did.  The donkey simply held still and looked at her adoringly, wearing an expression that in much later times would come to be known as “stoned”.  After a moment she straightened, and with a gentle tug on the donkey’s reigns led the now completely docile beast a few paces forward.  The cart’s wheels settled firmly back onto the track, safe and sound.  And suddenly the courtyard held nothing more dangerous than one completely composed Immortal woman, one blissfully happy donkey, and four utterly astonished men, staring at the scene with humungous eyes. “There, there,” Mother told the donkey, giving its nose an appreciative pat.  “I think you’ll feel better now.”

The donkey made a contented * _whuff, whuff*_ sound through its nostrils and butted its nose into her palm, looking as docile and content as a well-fed lap dog.  The same could not be said for the men, who were surveying the scene with varying degrees of shock.  Of all of them, the Apprentice Groom looked the most unnerved. He shivered, then hurriedly blessed himself with the sign of the cross.  “Witchcraft,” he breathed.

Softly as he said it, the word still rang through the little courtyard like a cymbal crash.  Both Stable Master and Guide looked shocked to the core, and to Methos, it wasn’t any wonder. To most Immortals, that word had extraordinary power.  It had to.  They all had reason to know how even the slightest whisper of it could turn a crowd of friends into a mob, and end a happy lifetime with torture and death.  Even cynical Methos, who had long since stopped being surprised by the sometimes truly stunning stupidity of their kind, was startled that the apprentice had dared to say it out loud.  How could any Immortal have the sheer audacity to speak such a word here, in what was supposed to be their Sanctuary? 

But in the stunned silence that followed, there came the quiet slap-slapping sound of sandals on stone, and a commanding voice spoke calmly.  “No, not witchcraft, Apprentice Groom,” it said, lilting musically through the courtyard.  “I think you will find that it was simply knowledge—although I will agree that sometimes, it is easy to confuse the two.  My daughter?  Have you found the beast’s wound?”

Methos turned his head and beheld Kahvin the Holy.

He certainly hadn’t gotten to be what he was…the leader of the most famous Immortal Sanctuary in history…because of his looks.  Kahvin was a small man, only a few finger widths taller than the woman.  His grey hair, cropped tidily into a monk’s tonsure, shone a dull silver in the afternoon sun.  And there could be no denying that his face, before his first death, had been extremely weathered and wrinkled by age. 

Still, Methos found it impossible to look at Kahvin and not be reminded of Darius. Like Darius, Kahvin projected a powerful aura of serenity and peace.  Like Darius, there was a certain edge within that aura which suggested this hadn’t always been true, that said perhaps this man of god had come to peace only after fighting many bloody battles, or even a few epic wars.  But that something was a subtle thing, a mere hint only, and completely drowned out by the rest of his dignified air.  A mortal would have trusted Kahvin to lead a school or give medicine to his children without question.  An Immortal, who had the added advantage of feeling his incredible Presence…not all that old by Methos’s standards, but strong, so strong it made the very earth seem to vibrate below their feet…would have had a difficult time resisting the urge to fall to his knees.   Methos felt it, and was glad that he was already sprawled upon the earth.  He noticed that almost all the others suddenly found reason to study their own feet. 

Only Mother seemed unaffected.  She simply lifted her veil and with neat, tidy motions recovered her face and hair, hands clearly doing what they’d done a thousand times before.  “Yes, Kahvin,” she answered.  “I found his wound.”

“Was it where you guessed, my child?”

Mother nodded.  For the first time Methos noticed that she held a large thorn in her left hand, one she must have taken from the donkey’s leg.  The thorn was stained bright red with blood.  “Yes, Kahvin.  It wasn’t far above the hoof.”

“And had it been in his leg for long?”

“Seven days or more, by the festering of the flesh.”  Mother gave the donkey another soothing pat.  “But there is fresh blood here, too.  I think the thorn must have only been in the muscle shallowly at first, a small hurt that the beast could easily ignore.  Then something drove it in deeper—perhaps he knocked the leg against the ferry as he was led ashore.  Whatever it was, it drove the poor beast beyond his ability to endure.”  She stroked the donkey’s nose fondly.  “He’s a good animal.  He would have never have reared, otherwise.”

“There.  Do you see it now?” Kahvin turned to Apprentice Groom.  “It wasn’t the devil’s work, after all, my son.  It was simply skill, hard won over many, many years.  Fortunately for us, our Mother here has had a lot of experience in coping with stubborn beasts.” He smiled softly. “Including *you* from time to time, I think, Apprentice Groom.” 

It was really quite astonishing.  On his last words Kahvin’s voice swelled with good humored teasing, becoming so light and affectionate it was impossible to take offence.  Apprentice Groom’s cheeks colored, but when he bent his head, he was smiling.  Everyone else let out a breath they hadn’t quite realized they’d been holding.  And suddenly the moment was over, the transgression soothed and forgiven.  The others didn’t even seem to remember that a transgression had happened at all.  Everyone seemed to calm—except for Stable Master, who suddenly looked quite stricken.  “Kahvin, I…”

“Be easy in your heart, my son,” Kahvin said mildly.  “How could you have known?  You had to have been standing at a distance, as Mother and I were, to see the way the beast was guarding his leg as he reared.  Besides, your first thought was for the books, which does you great credit.” He nodded at the Stable Master respectfully.  “You have earned my thanks.”

Once again, Kahvin’s words caused the same astonishing magic.  The Stable Master’s expression instantly gentled, joy replacing regret.  Kahvin turned to Methos, still sitting on the ground.  “And you, my new friend,” he said warmly.  “Your courage has also earned my thanks-- although it gave me a few bad moments, too!  I feel sure that Darius the Good would never have agreed to this exchange if he’d suspected we would end up taking better care of his books than his librarian. Let us hope that from here on out the only threat to your wits here will be your work, my son.”  He held out his hand.

Methos found himself taking it as he stood, and instantly felt overwhelmed.  Kahvin’s Presence was so powerful that just listening to his voice was like coming into the light of a very small sun.  To be touched by him was—something else altogether.  Irrational as it was, Methos suddenly felt grubby and unworthy.  He was filled with an irresistible need to wash his skin and change his travel-worn clothes—and to unburden his conscience.  “I fear, like Stable Master, that I have been negligent too,” Methos said uneasily.  “That beast has been my travelling companion for almost a fortnight, Kahvin.  He must have picked up the thorn while he was under my care.  If I had noticed it earlier, we would have been spared all this.  But I attributed his reluctance to let me groom that leg simply to bad temper.”

 “It might have helped,” Mother said as she left the donkey to come stand at their side, amused voice pitched for Methos’s ears alone, “if you hadn’t spent the whole of your journey calling him increasingly creative bad names, Librarian.”

He didn’t have to wonder how she knew.  As she approached, the wonderful drumbeat of her Quickening had risen all around him, flavored with the tang of cool, fertile earth and starry night time skies. There was no question that it was the Quickening of someone who had lived long and had learned much wisdom about nature, both human and animal.  Methos swallowed hard, and tried to answer with as much dignity as he could muster.  “If any name-calling was done, I assure you, it was the donkey who started it, m’lady,” he said shakily.

Kahvin, who had heard every word—Methos was to learn quickly that, despite his aged appearance, the monk possessed both the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a bat—laughed merrily.  “Yes, I imagine that he did, my son,” he said.  “What a pair the two of you must have made, both swearing and spitting at each other with every step! Two of a kind you are, I think, Librarian.  But never mind.”  He smiled, looking back between Methos and Mother with an expression that, on anyone less obviously religious, might have held a hint of mischief.  “I believe Mother here is more than capable of offering comfort and solace to you both.”

And they all walked through the Sanctuary’s opening arch together.

***

Methos never did learn Mother’s true name, not really.  It wasn’t that she never tried to tell him.  She did, nearly nine years later: whispering it into Methos’s ears the first time she ever came to his bed, merely one of the many gifts she brought to him that night.  But the language of her first people was such a complicated one, filled with so many strange sounds that even Methos’s ancient ears had never heard, that the fiftieth time he tried and failed to pronounce it properly she stopped him.  Instead, she told him to use the closest modern translation:  The Bright Sky At Dawn That Calls The People Gladly to the Sea, or simply “Bright Sky” for short.  And with that, Methos was more than content, because the name sang in him with a truth that was incontrovertible.  To everyone else within the Sanctuary, she was Mother.  But to Methos, she would always be his very Bright Sky.

There could be no question that Bright Sky’s Sanctuary name was well deserved.  Not only did she serve as the Sanctuary’s chatelaine, the one who kept the accounts balanced and saw to it that the larder was stocked, the livestock fed, and the laundry done, Bright Sky also performed a far more important role:  that of parenting the 40-odd other residents, and seeing to it they were all well-cared for and content.  She almost never raised her voice, but one reproving look could make the most battle-hardened Immortal quake with shame.  Similarly, a single word of praise could make that same warrior glow and squirm like a schoolboy.  In a community of bloody-handed misfits—all outcasts from the lands of their births, all raised with different gods and moral codes, and all taught that one day, they would have to face each other in a fight to the death—this wasn’t just an amusing testament to every man’s lifelong need for maternal approval.  It was an essential skill, one that kept the inevitable pressures of their small community life from erupting into gory chaos.

In short, the place could not have run without her.

More than seven hundred years later, sitting within a small New Mexican bedroom on the other side of the world, Joe could feel the depth with which Methos had respected that.   He experienced memory after memory of Methos lurking within the Sanctuary’s cavernous stone halls, fading quietly into the background as he watched Bright Sky go about her work.  Methos had witnessed her daily miracles of organization and social diplomacy with the same sense of wonder that Joe always felt when hearing a master musician perform.  The initial attraction Methos had felt for the lady’s beauty and the tantalizing enigma of her ancient Quickening had quickly faded, replaced by a deep, almost awed appreciation of her gifts—and, by the time a year had passed, that appreciation had been in turn replaced by a profoundly overpowering love.  Joe, feeling the echoes of that love reverberating through his borrowed memories, thought that perhaps a man had to have lived as long as Methos had in order to feel that deeply; that much emotion simply couldn’t exist without four thousand years’ experience of love and loss to create a container for it.  Joe took a deep, shaky breath, and said the only thing that made any kind of sense to say.  “She was very beautiful.”

Next to him, Methos cocked his head curiously.  “You can see her, Jobey?”

“Yes.  I’m pretty sure I can.”  Joe’s hands reached out almost subconsciously, tracing the lines of Bright Sky’s face in the air, just as Methos had so many centuries ago.  “Her face...”

Methos nodded.  “Ritual scarification,” he said.  “Thirteen deep lines and a half circle cut across each cheek, part of her people’s coming-of-age ceremony when she was still mortal.  I never learned just what the lines symbolized, or even what name to give the people who had placed them.  From her coloring and stature, I guessed Bright Sky had been born to one of the very early Polynesian tribes, but I never knew for certain.  I’m not even sure she still knew herself.  She was old, Joe.  Older than me, and more than old enough to have forgotten.  We never talked about it, but I could tell that it was true.” 

“It couldn’t have been easy, living in Dark Ages Europe with a face full of tribal scars.”

“No,” Methos agreed.  “Whoever her first people were, they had no idea what they were setting her up for.  Those scars may have been signs of high honor originally, but bearing them didn’t exactly make her Immortal life easy.  It was common for newcomers to the Sanctuary to think she’d been marked by a demon until they learned better.  And she had to be very carefully veiled every time she set foot off the island to trade for food and supplies, or she’d receive worse treatment at the hands of the local farmers.  She must have had a horrible time, before she found her way to Kahvin.” Methos looked sad.  “No wonder she agreed to stay there, to make the Sanctuary her permanent home.”

“And she was the reason that you stayed, as well.” 

Methos nodded again, his sadness palpable.  Joe frowned, feeling…he wasn’t sure what he was feeling.  He’d long since come to terms with the fact that in Methos’s long life there had been many other loves.  Still, knowing that intellectually, and suddenly having a first row seat to experiencing it—to actually feel Methos’s feelings, erotic and passionate and needful for the ancient Immortal woman—was something else.   Joe shook his head to clear it, deciding instead just to focus on the next question, to do whatever it took to keep Methos talking.  “It must not have been all that easy for her within the Sanctuary either,” he said.  “I’m a bit surprised that Kahvin allowed a woman to live there at all, especially one so beautiful.  Even with the scars.  Didn’t she have problems with the other men…um…”

“Thinking less than monastic thoughts?” Methos finished for him.  Joe nodded. For the first time, a genuine smile seemed to break through Methos’s sadness.  “Yes.  Constantly.  But Bright Sky was special, Joe.  She had a gentle way of letting a man know his attention was appreciated, while still making it clear that it would never be reciprocated.  The smitten man usually ended up loving her even more.  And would have cheerfully chopped off his own head before ever he so much as dreamed of touching her in a carnal way.”

“You did, though.”

“Yes.”  Methos looked away.  “Yes, I did. But not right away.  It was almost nine years before it happened.  And she was the one who approached me, Jobey.  Honestly.  Otherwise I never would have...”

“I know.”  Joe did, too.  Oh, god knew Methos had never suffered from a low libido, and under normal circumstances, he was more than capable of charming whoever he wanted into his bed.  But it was one of the many peculiarities of his character that when the stakes were high—when someone really mattered to him, or had touched his heart deeply, as Bright Sky clearly had—then Methos suddenly became overcome with an almost adolescent shyness, completely convinced that whatever charms he did possess were completely inadequate to attract his beloved.  Bright Sky would pretty much have had to make the first move if she’d wanted to overcome all that. Then, too, this was the Sanctuary: a 13th century European religious community, in form if not strictly in function.  As a newcomer who didn’t know all the rules—or what the consequences would be if those rules were broken—there was no way Methos would have shown his feelings openly.   Nor done anything that would have attached even a breath of scandal to the lady.  “You loved her too much to put her at risk,” Joe said.

“Exactly.”  Methos’s sadness returned.  “Kahvin believed very strongly in all three of the priest’s traditional vows, you see.  Obedience, poverty, and especially chastity were required of everyone who lived within the Sanctuary walls.  The other Immortal women within the keep…”

“There were women besides Bright Sky?”

“Not many. I think there were maybe only three or four during the first few years I was there.  But throughout the Sanctuary’s history, there were always at least a few.”

“Really?”

“Really.”  Methos nodded.  “The Game was very hard on female Immortals in those days, Jobey.  Amanda was damn lucky to have been found by Rebecca, you know.  Most other Immortal women of that era never found a female Teacher at all.  And the few who could find male Teachers willing to take them on were usually poorly served by them.  So you can imagine just how attractive a refuge the Sanctuary must have been.  At least—“ Methos grimaced slightly-- “for that handful of women who could keep their heads long enough to reach the gates.” 

“And Kahvin let them stay?  Despite the likelihood of non-monastic thoughts?”

“The other women in the Sanctuary mostly kept to themselves.  Maybe every cell in the nunnery had a pair of urgent lovers in it come nightfall…but if so, I never heard them.  I know it’s hard to believe, the average Immortal sex drive being what it is, but I truly think it didn’t happen all that often.  Jobey, in a community that size, the vow of chastity isn’t just about suppressing one’s baser urges to better serve one’s God; it’s also about avoiding jealousy and fights.   Nothing can disturb the peace more quickly than a love triangle gone bad.  And amongst our kind, such jealousies almost always lead to swords.  I knew that.  So did the women.  And Bright Sky…” Methos stopped.

Joe frowned.  There was a heaviness to Methos’s voice and manner that suggested there was something important here, perhaps the most important part of the story so far.  But whatever it was, Joe wasn’t quite catching it.  “And Bright Sky?” he repeated gently. 

“Bright Sky knew it better than anyone,” Methos answered heatedly.  “I already told you, Jobey.  Half the men in the keep were in love with her themselves.  The other half worshipped her as some kind of goddess—and defiling someone’s goddess is always a bad idea.   Special as she was, her position was really quite precarious.  The only way she could keep a solid footing amongst all that adulation was to treat everyone with the same affectionate distance, showing no favoritism.  That’s the real reason why I never made the first move.   And that’s also the reason why she spent so many years making sure we were never alone in the same room, hardly even speaking to me except for the expected formalities.  Even though the connection between us was so strong it practically crackled in the air every time we met.”

“But eventually, she approached you.”

“Yes.” Methos nodded bleakly.  “I still don’t know what it was that made her change her mind and finally come to my bed.  I was just so happy when she did that I forgot to ask.  And after a while I forgot to be careful, too, forgot to think about the consequences if our relationship was discovered. Maybe if I hadn’t, things would have been different.  I underestimated just what a powerful force jealousy can be…”

Methos’s voice trailed off, sounding lost and very, very alone.  Joe felt a shiver go down his back.  Yes, *this* was the source of the sadness in Methos’s memories, or at least it was a part of it. The story wasn’t even close to clear in Joe’s mind, but he could still feel it—feel how whatever happened next was going to spin hideously out of control, like an innocent snowball turning into an avalanche.  Joe wet his lips nervously.  “Someone got jealous,” he stated.  “Of you and Bright Sky.”

Methos nodded painfully.  “Somebody got very jealous,” he agreed.  “But not then.  And not really for himself, I think.  It wasn’t until the rest of Kahvin’s ‘children’ started coming home…”

  



	5. Chapter 5

~ _Le Sanctuaire des Immortels, June 1242_ ~

Bright Sky’s body was beautiful.

Like her face, it was a beauty not without its share of scars.  During the scant handful of nights since she had first started coming to Methos’s bed, Methos’s questing hands had found more than one place where Bright Sky’s bones had been broken during her mortal life, and there were the remains of several knife wounds over one breast that he was far too cowardly to ask the origin of.   Still, like the marks along her cheekbones, to anyone with more than a casual eye the wounds simply enhanced her beauty, making it obvious what kind of strength and spirit had lived for so long within that gloriously feminine form.  Small breasted and wide hipped, covered with a luminous almond skin that glimmered with a sheen of sweat, she was now rising and falling over Methos’s body like an ocean wave, surging and retreating with powerful, rhythmic grace.  She was nearing her climax, every inch of her skin alive to him, ebony hair dancing over her spine as her neck arched back.  Methos reached up to touch her, first caressing her cheek and then lightly teasing her nipples with his palms, so fascinated by the picture pleasure was painting on her body that nothing else in the world seemed to exist.  Even the sweet ache of need his own body was experiencing paled in importance to the all-important duty—and privilege—of watching her face as she came.

He moved his hips carefully, ever so slightly changing his angle within her.  It was a small change, but it made all the difference.  Bright Sky’s entire body began to shake, even her small toes vibrating in the blankets by his sides. Methos sat up quickly and wrapped her in his arms, holding her even as he thrust more deeply to push her higher, supporting her and keeping her safe as her climax poured through her body.  When it was over, he pulled her head against his shoulder and lowered her down to the bed as gently as a falling leaf.

They stayed like that, wrapped around and within each other, until Bright Sky came fully back to herself.  She’d flown so high that it happened in stages, and Methos kept careful guard over each one, watching and learning as her taut muscles slowly softened into butter, her breath begin to still, her consciousness began to slowly sink back down into her body.  Finally, Bright Sky was truly with him once again.  She gave a great big yawn and stretched luxuriantly against the bedclothes.  When her eyes finally opened, they regarded Methos with open amusement, an expression mirrored by the impish curve to her lips.  “Well, Librarian,” she said.  “I thought the first time may have been a fluke.  The second, mere coincidence.  But after spending almost half a year’s worth of nights in your bed, I am beginning to believe that your achievements are actually the result of long practice, not luck.  Tell me—do all librarians secretly possess such skills?  Or is it simply that you have had the occasion to study far more, in your time, than dusty old books?”

It was surprising, just how good it felt to laugh.  After all the tension of the last few hours—beautiful, glorious tension to be sure, but tension all the same—the release was sweet.  “Now, now,” Methos teased back.  “Don’t underestimate what you can learn from dusty old books.  Not every author in history spent all his time writing about the purity of his love for God, you know.”

Bright Sky nodded gravely. “Yes, I know,” she said.  “Judging from the books you brought with you—at least the ones you keep within your cell-- they also spent a great deal of time writing about beer.  Making it, drinking it, praising God for it…”

“Imp.”    Methos tickled her ribcage.  He had meant it to be a playful gesture, but Bright Sky reacted as if were anything but. Her chest arched sensually into his fingers, and one beautiful hip slid sinuously down the bed.  Methos swallowed, his own body re-stirred by this evidence of a return to pleasure. “I do have a few other interests, you know,” he said, voice much huskier than it had been a moment before.  “I brought a few books on other arts, as well.  Secrets of pleasure from cultures long dead.  I’ll show them to you sometime.”

“Will you? Mmmm.  I look forward to that.” Bright Sky lifted her foot, used her little toe to trace a sensual path down the outside of his calf.  “Tell me, Librarian.  These ancient books of yours…are you merely a student of their wisdom?  Or did you perhaps write one or two of them yourself?”

Methos froze, startled by the question.  He knew, and knew that she knew, that the two of them were by far the oldest creatures in the keep.  It was impossible *not* to know, since their Quickenings both sang with the knowledge whenever they were together.  But they never spoke of it aloud, and Methos had gotten so used to the Sanctuary’s taboo on speaking of the past that he’d almost forgotten life could be lived any other way.  To have her make a reference to his age now, even in such an oblique way, was something of a shock.  Instantly, Methos arranged his features into a bland, blank mask.  “What makes you say that?”

Bright Sky saw it.   Just as instantly, her own face was contrite.  “Forgive me, Librarian,” she said.  “I wasn’t trying to pry.  I was simply trying, in my clumsy way, to flatter you.”  She smiled demurely.  “You see, in all my years, I have never met a man capable of giving so much pleasure to a woman without taking any for himself.  Such a thing strikes me as being the accomplishment of a true master of his art.  One who should be writing such books, instead of studying them.”

He relaxed.    “Perhaps you simply inspired me.”

“And now I think you are trying to flatter *me*.  But if that is true, then I would like to inspire you some more.”  Methos smiled, shifting downward on the cot so he could pepper the luscious curve of her abdomen with gentle kisses.  She gave a sigh a pure contentment, twining her fingers softly in his hair.  “Though if you are going to show me these books of yours, it had better be soon,” she said, warmly but with regret.  “The Feast of Saint Denis is barely a season away.  I’m afraid I will soon be too busy preparing to read books of any kind. No matter how enticing the subject.”

“The Feast of Saint Denis?”  Methos lifted his head, surprised.  He knew the feast was a major occasion in the villages and towns close to the Sanctuary.  People needed to celebrate a successful harvest somehow, and the feast had taken over from the more ancient pagan holidays that had once served the same purpose.  But the feast was still more than five months away—it took place in early October, while they had yet to even celebrate midsummer.  And during Methos’s nine years of living within the Sanctuary, the feast had come and gone every fall with no more than a token celebration.  Why on earth would Bright Sky need to start planning for it now? “Yes, I can see how that would take up a lot of your time,” Methos said, in perfect deadpan.  “A few extra prayers during mid-day mass, an extra helping of turnips at supper…naturally, your entire summer should be devoted to such preparations.  I shall put aside all my work in the library to help you, if you wish.” 

She giggled.  “Foolish Librarian,” she teased.  “In another month or so, I may take you up on that--and you will quickly regret making such a hasty offer.  Although I doubt Kahvin would allow me to reassign you.  He is as eager for you to finish your translations so he may have new books to read as the rest of us.  But I can see why you would be confused.  Most years, the feast does indeed mean little to us.  We let it pass almost unheeded.”   She patted the cot beside her; Methos took the hint and returned to her side, where she snuggled contently into his arms.  “But this year is very special. This is the year of The Return.”

“The Return?”

Methos must have looked as baffled as he felt, because Bright Sky laughed merrily.  “I keep forgetting what a short time you have dwelt amongst us,” she said.  “I shouldn’t tell you, really; I should simply let you be surprised.  But you, my oh-so curious Librarian, will not be content to wait.  You will simply ask someone else as soon as my back is turned.  So I might as well tell you now.”  She rolled onto her side and propped herself up on one arm, eyes suddenly serious.  “Although I warn you--some of it is secret.  Things known only to those who have sworn lifelong vows to this place.  Not those who are merely being guested here for a time.” 

“I did not ask for your secrets, Bright Sky,” Methos said softly, sobered by her change of mood.  “As you know, when my work in Kahvin’s library is finally complete, I will have to leave. I must take the copied books back to Darius.  And then perhaps make even more copies there to go from him to other places for safe keeping.” He sobered, visions of the flames at the Great Library of Alexandria dancing before his eyes.  “There is knowledge in these books that must never again be allowed to be lost.”

She smiled softly, mysteriously.  “I know, Librarian,” she said.  “But once you have fulfilled your commitment to Darius…have you never thought of returning here?  Kahvin has many contacts amongst the nobility, all over Europe; there are many more libraries that he could arrange for you to trade with.  And most of us here love the written word just as much as you.  There are many amongst our number who would be eager to be trained to help you—not just as copyists, as Guide is doing now, but as translators, too.   Have you never considered continuing your great work from within these walls?   Becoming *our* Librarian, for once and for all?”

He nodded, slowly stroking a hand through her long hair.  “I must admit that the thought had crossed my mind,” he said.  “Even before a certain lady began ‘inspiring’ me.  It is so peaceful here, Bright Sky.  Everyone is so content…” She stayed silent, merely watching him closely.  After a moment, Methos sighed. “But I too have sworn my own vows elsewhere, and carry secrets that cannot be shared.  It may be that, once this job is finished, those promises will take me far away.”

“I know,” Bright Sky answered solemnly.  “I know, and Kahvin knows too…or we would have asked you to join us fully long before this, my heart.  But never mind.  Whatever may happen in the future, you will be here, a part of our circle, for this Return.  And so many of our brothers and sisters will be talking about so many things so freely then that what I tell you will become obvious.  So really, I am not telling you anything you wouldn’t discover anyway.” She pushed back her hair and smiled at him, mood lightening as if by magic.  “You already know that any Immortal may stay within the Sanctuary and enjoy our full hospitality, be guested fully for a year and a day, just for the asking?”

“I do.”

“But…with a few notable exceptions, such as you yourself… if any Immortal wishes to stay beyond that time, he or she must swear allegiance to the Sanctuary, and agree to be bound by Kahvin’s judgment in all things?”

“Yes.”  It was another reason why Methos was reluctant to swear such a vow, a reason even more compelling than those commitments symbolized by the wooden Watcher symbol necklace he kept carefully hidden within his cell.  Methos’s nature simply rebelled at the idea of giving any man total control over his life and fate, no matter how remarkable a man he might be.  “Yes, I knew that, too.”

Bright Sky nodded.  “Well, then,” she said.  “Normally, our lives are completely in Kahvin’s hands.  He decides whether we go or stay: if we need to be within the Sanctuary or, more rarely, when it is time for one of us to return to the outer world.  But every few centuries, when Kahvin deems the time is right, we are all given a chance to decide for ourselves.  Kahvin calls this The Leaving.  It is a time of great sadness.  But also of great celebration, since it means that many of our brothers’ and sisters’ years of retreat and learning are over—it is a kind of graduation ceremony, in its way.  Any Immortal within these walls who feels called to return to the world may do so freely then.”

“Oh?” 

Externally, Methos showed a face of polite puzzlement and curiosity.  Internally, though, he was crooning a smug ‘aha!’  He’d known there had to be a reason why so many disparate people could all get along so seamlessly for so many years, without feeling trapped.  This ‘Leaving’ sounded to him like nothing so much as a social safety valve.  It was amazing how much conflict people could put up with if they saw a light at the tunnel, an eventual way to escape.  The fact that the escape might be centuries away didn’t matter.  It was there.  And there was always the chance that it *might* be coming as early as tomorrow, which was probably enough to sooth all but the most acute forms of distress.  That Kahvin had the final say on exactly when the exodus took place was the final stroke of genius.  Methos was willing to bet that a Leaving never actually occurred unless there was an irredeemable trouble maker in their midst.  One who could probably be tricked into believing that his departure was his own idea. 

But he said none of this out loud.  Instead he said, “And how does Kahvin decide when it is time for one of these Leavings?”

“He doesn’t decide, my love.  He simply knows.” 

“Let me guess.  God speaks, and Kahvin listens?”

Bright Sky smiled serenely, completely unmoved by Methos’s skepticism.  “I suspect it is more complicated than that,” she said.  “In some ways, our Kahvin is a most unusual prophet, my heart.  To my knowledge, he has never once claimed to have heard the Creator speak…only to have seen more of the goodness of His creation than most of us have the ability to see.  There is…a kind of pattern behind all the turnings of this world, a current, a tide.  Most of us just dimly glimpse it, if we ever glimpse it at all.  I see more of it than many.  Which is why my first people gave me these.”  She touched the crescent moons scaring her lovely face.  “But Kahvin…ah, Kahvin sees more than even I.  And his visions are always beautiful.”  She moved her hand from her cheekbone to Methos’s chest.  “I know you have yet to trust in this, my Librarian.  That beautiful busy mind of yours must try to find absolute proof of everything, and some things are just too big to be proven.  But I believe that at least a part of you must have *felt* the truth of it.  Here.  In your heart.”

He covered her small hand with his own, touched by her faith, unable to crush it with his own inborn cynicism when she had gone so far as to call attention to her scars, something she had never done in all the time he’d known her so far.  “Perhaps,” he said noncommittally, and sought to change the subject.  “I’m still not sure what all this has to do with the feast of St. Denis.”

She smirked.  “Impatient Librarian!  I’m coming to it.  You were the one who distracted me, in asking all the hows and whys.  But here it is.  When the time for Leaving comes, all who chose to go must swear two things.  First, for the next ten years they must travel with no real destination in mind, going instead wherever the good God leads them.  And second, if at all possible, they must return here to the Sanctuary once the ten years have passed.” Bright Sky smiled happily.  “That is what we call The Return.  During the tenth year we gather on the Feast of St. Denis…and oh, Librarian, you cannot imagine the joy of it!  We feast, we drink, we share stories and music and news.  We may even sing and dance if we are so moved.  No pleasure is forbidden….”

“Goodness.  It sounds like quite the orgy.”

“It could be,” Bright Sky said soberly.  “I could come openly to your bed then, Librarian, and not so much as an eyebrow would be raised.  Or share you with whichever of our brothers or sisters you desired, provided that they desired us in turn.” 

Methos couldn’t help it; *he* raised an eyebrow at this, and Bright Sky simply smiled at him knowingly.  They share an intense moment of heat, both contemplating the possibilities, before she broke the moment with a contented sigh.  “But in truth, our entertainments are usually far more innocent,” she said.  “There is so much bliss to be had from simply being in each other’s company, you see.  For all of St. Denis’s Eve we revel in it, until the feast day itself dawns, and…” She stopped.

“And what happens then?”

“Now that truly is a secret,” Bright Sky answered.  “But I assure you, my Librarian, that what happens then is the greatest bliss of all.”  She fell back against the pillows.  “So you see?  Starting my preparations now is hardly beginning too soon.  At the last Leaving, more than half our number chose to go out into the world.  And if God is good, almost all will come back, since only the loss of a head would keep one of us from the Return.  It is I who must see to it that enough supplies are laid in to comfortably guest them all.  And not just them, either.”

“No?”

“No.”  She shook her head merrily.  “It’s not uncommon for our brothers and sisters to rise high within the world during their time away, and to travel here with a mortal entourage worthy of their new stations.  And who must see to it that their servants are rested and provisioned before they are once again sent upon their way?  That’s right—it is I, Librarian.  Not to mention that our beloved brothers and sisters sometimes bring students with them too, new Immortals who are completely ignorant of our ways.  Your loyal friend Guide first came to us in such a manner.  So did the Third Apprentice Groom, and many more.  It is I who must settle them in, and find them appropriate jobs, should they wish to stay.”  Bright Sky flopped back onto the cot, wiping her brow theatrically.  “Really, the summer days are none too long for all I have to prepare.  Do you see now why I say my time for pleasure may soon be sadly short?”

Methos nodded sagely.  “I do.  And I’m afraid that I can see only one solution.”  He brushed the underside of her knee with his fingers, let his hand trail seductively up her thigh.  “Which is to make the most of all the time we have now.” 

“Why, Librarian.  Have I succeeded in inspiring you?”  In answer, Methos dropped his head and began to follow the same path his hand had just taken with his lips.  Bright Sky settled more firmly onto her back, spreading both her arms and her legs in invitation.  “Do not hold back your own bliss this time, my heart,” she said.  “After all, there is only so much a woman can take.”

And Methos smiled, and did as he was told.

***

Back in the present moment, Joe came back to himself with a decidedly unpleasant jolt.  He stared at his beloved outright, openmouthed.  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Methos…this was 1242.”

“Yes.”

“The 13th century Bloody Hunt ended that year.  It began in 1232, ten years before.  If all these Immortals were coming back to the Sanctuary then…”  Joe’s mouth shut with a pop.  “My god.  Kahvin was the one who sent them out, wasn’t he?  *Kahvin* was the reason all those Immortals went insane and started taking the heads of everything that moved.  He told them to do it—he sent them out into the world on purpose so they could!  Didn’t he?”

“Yes, Jobey.  He sent them out only a year or so before I arrived.  And then called them back again.”  Methos’s face was decidedly sour. “At the end of the decade, all Kahvin’s children…the ones who survived, anyway…returned to the Sanctuary.  To feast and celebrate a job well done.”

“But why?”  Joe was still staring.  “Okay, I mean, I guess I get the celebration part of it.  If you’ve been facing death almost constantly for the last ten years, naturally you’d want to party at the end of it.  But why send them out to hunt heads in the first place?  Kahvin was supposed to be a man of peace!” 

“I don’t know, Joe.  I never did find out.  We…parted company long before I could ask.”  A grimace.  “It was bad enough just finding out that he *had*.”

“So…”  Joe frowned.  “Oh.  Oh, god.  So at that point…when all the Immortals started returning to the Sanctuary in 1242…you still didn’t know.  You had no idea what Kahvin’s followers had spent the last decade really doing.”

“No.”  Methos shook his head.  “How could I?  Long distance communication was a precious commodity in those days, Jobey.  It wasn’t uncommon for a Watcher field agent to spend his entire lifetime Watching an Immortal and only have his reports become a part of the official Chronicle some fifty years later, when his grandchildren finally scraped together the money to travel to Paris and deliver the papers in person.  The only way I would have ever seen the Bloody Token would have been to take the head of one of Kahvin’s followers myself.  And even if I had, he wouldn’t exactly have had the time or the inclination to explain its meaning first.” Methos swallowed.  “It was almost a century before Darius and I were finally able to collate all the data and really understand just what the death toll had been.”

“But you learned what Kahvin had been up to long before that.”

“Yes.”  Methos’s hand clenched uncomfortably in the bedclothes.  “Yes.  I learned.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> St. Denis is a real saint. He was the first Bishop of Paris, who was beheaded by Romans circa 250 C.E. on the hill in Paris that would eventually be named for him--Montmartre, or "The Martyr's Mountain". According to legend, after his beheading he picked up his severed head in his hands and walked for six miles before finally succumbing to death, preaching a sermon the entire way. Interestingly enough, his name--Denis--is actually derived from Dionysus, the ancient Greek god of wine and religious ecstasy.


	6. Chapter 6

_~_ _Le Sanctuaire des Immortels_ _, Late Summer, 1242~_

In all his centuries of life, Methos had personally never witnessed so many Immortals all in one place.

They began arriving shortly after midsummer, mostly one by one, sometimes in twos or threes.  They came on horseback, on donkey, by foot; as Bright Sky had predicted, two or three even came with trains of mortal retainers, each servant riding the finest of blooded beasts.  But it didn’t really matter how they came.  No matter how an Immortal arrived, he, or more rarely she, always entered the Sanctuary in exactly the same way: crossing the sands barefoot at low tide, with only Guide to lead him.  Animals and possessions, if any, would be ferried across at a later time.  Servants and mortal companions were left behind, allowed to camp for a day and a night on the shore before they were sent upon their way.  Once they had been, the newly arrived Immortals would cross the sands on their two feet, laboriously testing each step with a heavy wooden staff, until they reached the very shadow of the main Sanctuary gate.  Even the Guide deserted them there, taking away the protective staffs and leaving them to stand alone, while everyone inside the Sanctuary whose duties allowed them to be present stood looking down from the ramparts above.

Then, a very strange ritual took place.  Someone—most commonly the Stable Master, but anyone with a voice loud and deep enough to carry would fill in in a pinch—someone would stand just inside the gate and shout the following questions, waiting for the never-ceasing ocean winds to carry the newcomer’s answers back:

“Who are you?”

“I am one of the circle!”

“And why have you come back?”

“Because I have Returned.”

“And why have you Returned?”

“To make the circle complete.”

“And once the circle has been completed?”

“Then it can be reopened!”

After which there would be much laughter and hugging and thumping of backs, as the newcomer crossed the last few final feet of sand and was formally welcomed through the Sanctuary gates. 

No one ever went out their way to explain the ritual words to Methos.  After a while Methos decided they were just so much doggerel, nonsense intended only to positively identify a newcomer as a former member of the company.  As such, he’d certainly seen sillier ceremonies.  The Watchers of that time were currently using a “secret handshake” consisting of so many ridiculous ear-tugs and foot-wiggles that centuries later, Methos would suspect it had somehow been handed down through the generations to become the basis of a Monty Python sketch.

But as much as he might inwardly scoff, Methos had to admit that he viewed these ceremonies with a certain wistfulness.   Each returning Immortal seemed to slip back into his or her place within the community with such blissful seamlessness.  To Methos, perpetually standing on the sidelines, it felt like being a neighbor child present at another family’s reunion, when the grandparents came and brought hugs and gifts for everyone but him.  The part of him that had always yearned for a true home stirred painfully.  Once or twice, Methos even considered going to Kahvin and asking if he could make the permanent vows that would make the Sanctuary his home for good. 

But somehow he never quite did.

It took him some time to adjust to the Sanctuary’s swelling numbers.  It was a dizzying, disorienting sensation, having so many Immortals gathered under one roof. The ring of strange Quickenings was always buzzing through Methos’s head, the heavy crackle of electric constantly dancing over his skin.  Methos didn’t think he’d ever get used to it.

But as the summer drew to a close, and the last of Kahvin’s wandering children trickled in—bringing the final headcount to something over seventy, a number Methos was sure had never gathered together before in all of Immortal history—Methos began to discover a curious elation, too.  The Song of the Sanctuary was still overwhelming, yes.  That did not change.  But as the Immortal numbers began to climb its harmony took on a new depth, a new texture…and a new strength, too, one that slowly but surely began to affect every person in the keep.  It was as if there was a constant, subtle force gently nudging them all together, pulling them away from discordance and back into joy.  Minor flairs of mood and temper that used to disrupt the harmony began to be a thing of the past.  Everyone seemed to feel it, even Methos, who gradually let his suspicions slip and simply sat back and enjoyed.  No question about it.  There was something magical in the air...

Whatever that magic was, Bright Sky practically glowed with it.  She moved among the gathered brethren with the grace of a dance, attending to everyone’s needs with all the loving care implicit in her Sanctuary name. Methos spent several hours one day simply watching her oversee the washing of the linen, lost in the beauty of her pale hands moving among the great wooden washtubs and drinking in the occasional song of her gentle laugh.  Only one thing seemed to dim her spirits.  Every time a new arrival came, Bright Sky welcomed him—or, much more rarely, her—with great joy, kissing the newcomer on the cheek like the brothers and sisters she truly seemed to believe they were—and then she would peer into the shadows of the hall as if looking for someone else.  When that someone did not appear, she would frown for a moment and ask the newcomer if he or she had “any word of Harpist?”  The answer to this was always a negative, and it always caused Bright Sky to get very still and quiet for a moment, before she shook her head and was once again as joyous as before. 

Methos, who saw this performance repeated over and over again, began to wonder just who this Harpist was.  The rules of the keep forbade him from asking, but he suspected strongly that Harpist was much more than friend—a student, perhaps, or even a lover.  Curiosity, then, made him go to the walls to appraise each newcomer, wondering if he was the one; love for Bright Sky made his heart break when Bright Sky’s body language made it obvious that such was not the case.  He well knew what Bright Sky’s fear was, and he wished with every fiber of his being that Harpist, whoever he was, would hurry up and prove to Bright Sky that he still possessed his head. 

But he never did. 

If Bright Sky felt it, though, she never betrayed it in more than those momentary disappointments.  The rest of the time she was merry…and busy.  If she wasn’t arranging for the Sanctuary residents’ feeding and care, she was overseeing the disposition of their gifts. Kavhin’s returning “children” were an incredible patchwork of humanity, wearing all the colors of skin and varieties of costume humanity could boast, and there was an equal variety to their apparent stations.  Some arrived draped in expensive furs and jewels, and came bearing gifts of equal magnificence—chests of gold, lengths of fine cloth, flasks of sweet perfume from the East. Others came barefoot, wearing the tattered remains of the same Sanctuary robes they had left in. 

But even those dressed as beggars often arrived with surprising wealth hidden with their pockets, wealth they gave freely to Kavhin and the keep.  Salts and spices.  Finely crafted buttons and needles and pins. Seeds of herbs both medicinal and culinary.  And knowledge, knowledge most of all:  new ways for crafting swords and taming horses and weaving cloth; new epic songs and poems; and finally simply *the* news, all the public and not-so-public stories of battles and weddings and scandals from all across Europe and beyond.  

Methos, listening quietly from his corner of the great hall as each new arrival entertained the company with tales of his or her travels, finally began to grasp just how Kavhin had managed to keep the Sanctuary going without outside interference.  There was enough knowledge in that room to make Kavhin capable of blackmailing any power who threatened him.  Thanks to his “children”, Kahvin had eyes and ears in most of the royal courts in Europe, and direct witnesses to most of the great events of the last decade.  Methos would eventually even begin to wonder, uneasily, just how many of those events had actually been shaped by Kavhin’s followers, acting on his orders behind the scenes…

But that was a suspicion for later.  As the feast of St. Denis drew closer and more and more of Kahvin’s faithful Returned, Methos simply watched.  And almost, almost let himself dare to hope that Kahvin really had found the secret to lasting Immortal peace, after all.

***

If Bright Sky was slightly disheartened by most of the arriving Immortals, one, at least, did not disappoint.  He came a few weeks after Midsummer, riding a black horse as fine as Methos had ever seen, dressed in simple warrior’s clothes that showed evidence of much travel.  At first, the newcomer was so surrounded by welcoming brothers and sisters that Methos couldn’t do more than catch a glimpse of him from afar.  But later on, Bright Sky made a special effort to introduce him.  “Librarian.  This is…” She dimpled.  “Do you know, I have no idea how to introduce you now? Our traditions demand that you leave your name outside along with your sword, so Robert the Wanderer died the moment you crossed the sands.  But you are so much more than just a “guest” to us now.  And somehow, your old name of ‘Laundry Boy’ no longer seems to fit.”

The man grinned.  “It is as honorable a title as any I have ever born, Mother,” he said cheerfully.  “I would be most pleased to carry it again. But since I am sure there are others here who are called by it already…”

“Indeed there are.”  Bright Sky agreed.  “I can hardly do all the laundry by myself, now can I? I shall have to make sure you meet them, later.”

He made a sweeping bow.  “Another honor,” he said.  “I shall be most glad to meet them, m’lady, at any time you wish.  And lend a hand to lighten their duties too, if Kahvin so decrees! But as I was saying, I do not wish to steal the name from those who bear it now.  And since I do not wish to call myself simply “Traveler” or “Guest”, since I believe that this time I am finally home for good…”  He and Bright Sky shared a long look, one that Methos thought left Bright Sky looking slightly troubled, although she banished the shadow from her eyes almost quickly as it came… “we shall all have to wait for Kahvin to re-name me as he sees fit.  In the meantime, I think simply going as ‘Robert’ will have to serve for now.  After all, ‘tis such a common name that it cannot reveal my sinful past, and therefore will not go *too* far against the custom.”  He turned bright green eyes, sparkling with humor, in Methos’s direction.  “What think you, Librarian?”

“I think it is as good a compromise as any,” Methos answered.  “Well met, Brother Robert.”  He offered his hand, carefully looking over the newcomer from head to toe. 

Robert simply smiled serenely and clasped Methos’s hand.  He appraised Methos as frankly as Methos appraised him, and by the end of the handshake, Methos had learned two things.  One, it was foolish to believe that the lost Harpist was the only lover Bright Sky had ever taken within the Sanctuary walls before Methos; this man had clearly spent no small amount of time in Bright Sky’s bed.  And Robert also already knew, either from Bright Sky or simply from body language alone, that Methos had done the same. 

But he wasn’t the kind to make trouble over it.  In fact, if anything, it made his manner toward Methos warmer than it might otherwise have been.  There was a hint of interest in his bright eyes that made the usual once-over all male Immortals gave each other upon meeting socially-- the one that measured arm length and calculated sword reach, noted dominant hand, and made attempts at guessing the owner’s muscular strength and stamina—take on quite a different meaning.  “But you, at least, do not need an introduction,” the man said cheerfully, releasing Methos’s hand.  “Even if everyone in the keep was not talking about this mysterious new Librarian who has joined our circle, I’ve heard enough about you from Darius in the last few months to have known you anywhere.  Certainly he complained often that you are no longer sending him messages as often as you used to.  I think he misses your letters, my friend.”

Methos found himself smiling with incredulous pleasure.  “You came from Darius?”

“Indeed I did,” Robert answered.  “I stayed with him for several weeks, just before I travelled here.  Did you not know?  Darius was my first Teacher.” 

“Robert,” Bright Sky said warningly.

The warrior laughed.  “And my lady here is reminding me that I should say nothing more—a warning I justly deserve.  As you can see, Librarian, I have been in the world for so many years that the customs of our Sanctuary now seem strange, rather than commonplace!  But even I know that it is one thing to dare to hold onto a name here, and quite another to discuss one’s past in detail.  So I shall set my early years behind me now as I should.  No life before the sands!  But—“  His green eyes twinkled.  “It should not strain custom *too* much for me to tell you that somewhere in my packs there are messages from Darius for both you and Kahvin, as well as a few books and a new formula of ink he thought you might find useful.  He speaks most highly of you, Librarian.”

“Then I owe you both my thanks,” Methos answered. 

He didn’t add that favor had already been returned.  Now that the all-important fact of Robert being Darius’s student had been revealed, Methos knew very well who this man was—and he was, quite possibly, one of the most influential Immortals to have lived in Europe during the last thousand years.  Darius had indeed spoken highly, and often, of this Robert the Wanderer, or rather of Robert Fairsword, as he’d been known a few hundred years before.  The man had been a behind-the-scenes power in almost every royal court in Europe, often serving as mentor and arms master to warriors of great renown, both mortal and Immortal.  In addition, his wide travels and willingness to bear messages had made him a great help to Darius and the Watchers, although as far as Methos knew Robert had only ever carried Watcher messages unknowingly, not being in on the Great Secret.  Still.  Methos’s eyes narrowed subtly as he continued his silent appraisal.  Knowing what he did of Robert’s Chronicle, if the man had truly spent his years in the Sanctuary serving Kahvin as a “Laundry Boy”—and Methos now remembered that Robert had, indeed, spent more than a hundred years here, although Methos hadn’t known he’d been here during the Leaving only a decade before—well, if Kahvin had spent a century using such a man merely for stirring dirty clothes in a pot, Methos would personally eat his sword.  Still…

Still.  Perhaps it was the lulling quality of the Sanctuary’s song.  But try as he might, Methos could detect no tinge of duplicity within Robert’s Quickening.  And while Darius may have spoken often and glowingly about his former protégé, he had neglected to mention one very important thing…Robert was exactly the type of Immortal Methos was well known for making a fool of himself over.  Tall, dark, undeniably pretty in face, old enough to have had his last vestige of innocence long since knocked away by the world but still young enough to retain an undeniable lust for life….oh, yes.  Methos could see that lust clearly, written into every lovely line of the master swordsman’s body and singing in every note of his Quickening; he could easily understand Bright Sky’s attraction.  If Darius had been there, Methos imagined the old priest would have shaken his head and murmured something under his breath about catnip and cats.  Methos treated Robert to his most guileless smile.  “Tell me, Brother Robert.  Would it be straining custom too much to ask how you left Dar…ah, our mutual friend?”

“Well, I am not certain!  Mother?” Bright Sky nodded, clearly attempting to look maternally severe, but her dancing eyes gave her away.  Robert smiled and clapped a warm hand to Methos’s shoulder.  “Then I may tell you that I left him very well indeed.  A bit embroiled in some minor church politics…I imagine you will find more details in your letter…but it’s nothing our friend cannot handle.  I truly think he feels his lack of a decent chess partner more.  He lost his mortal alderman recently, and none of the other brothers can even come close to approaching his skill.  The Good God knows that *I* do not.  Darius offered to share his recipe for honey mead with me if I even so much as managed to take a rook…which should tell you all need to know about his respect for my skill…”

“Indeed it does,” Methos said dryly.  “Perhaps you would care to play me one night?  With, say, that beautiful stallion you arrived riding as the wager?”

Robert chuckled appreciatively.  Bright Sky looked confused.  “I don’t understand.”

“Our mutual friend’s honey mead is famous, Mother,” Robert explained cheerfully.  “And he is just as famously protective of its recipe. To my knowledge he has never shared it with anyone, mortal or Immortal, in well over two thousand years.  If he offered the recipe to me in exchange for a rook, well, it was only because he was certain it was beyond my ability to claim it.”  Bright Sky smiled and nodded her understanding.  “Although,” Robert continued, “I must say that our friend isn’t in the least bit stingy about sharing the mead itself.  Though I’m afraid I failed him there, as well.  If I’d drunk even half of what he pressed on me I’d have gone to sleep for a year, and missed the Return!  But he did give me half a dozen casks to bring with me; Mother here tells me she has already found a place for them within the Sanctuary’s cellars.  Perhaps—“ Robert’s handsome green eyes met Methos’s squarely.  “Perhaps… the three of us might open one together?  Come St. Denis’s Eve?”

A poignant silence descended.  Methos, suddenly remembering what Bright Sky had said of the feast--*you and I could share each other’s bed openly then, or join anyone we wished*-- was forced to wonder:  could Robert be offering to share much more than just Darius’s famous brew? He looked curiously at his lover.  She gazed back just as squarely as Robert had, her dark eyes looking serenely happy and content.  Well, well.  That was….intriguing.  Very intriguing indeed.   “Perhaps,” Methos said calmly.  “I would certainly not be adverse, provided the lady has no objection.  We will have to see…”

A voice spoke up behind him, harsh and heavy with disapproval.  “Drunkenness is a sin.”

Methos looked over his shoulder, and mentally groaned.  Oh, yes, of course.  Naturally it would have to be the Third Apprentice Groom, Methos’s least favorite person within the keep, the one who had accused Bright Sky of witchcraft on Methos’s first day.  Methos might have eventually gotten over that. Heaven knew that ignorance and stupidity were common enough faults, and Methos would have made allowances for them, had the child shown any inclination toward overcoming them at all.  Alas, the Apprentice Groom coupled his ignorance with an overwhelming judgmental arrogance, as well.  He was the kind that saw no need to study or expand his mind, believing that the little he didn’t already know was simply unimportant, an attitude Methos just couldn’t forgive—particularly as the Apprentice Groom was also the type to see sin around every corner and glory in loudly denouncing it to the world, while just as loudly proclaiming his own virtue. Right now, for instance, the young Immortal’s face looked as sour and censorious as a particularly religious farmer who’d caught his daughter frolicking behind the haystacks with the boy next door.  Even Bright Sky, normally as calm as patient as a saint, had suddenly developed a pinched, pained look around her eyes. 

But Robert’s face looked like a sunrise had broken over it.  “Eduardo!  My dearest lad!”  he exclaimed.  And instantly clasped the young Immortal in a bear-like hug.

Methos couldn’t quite stop himself from staring.  Even by the standards of the other warm greetings he’d seen Robert exchange that day, this particular embrace stood out.  Robert clasped the Apprentice Groom as passionately and joyfully as a mother would clasp a long-lost child.   They held each other for what seemed a very long time…and when Robert finally moved away, the Apprentice Groom dropped to one knee before him.  “Teacher,” he said quietly.  Worshipfully.

“Ah, no, lad,” Robert answered, shaking his head.  “The honor of that title is no longer mine.  Even if I had not surrendered it as willingly as I surrendered every other when I crossed the sands today, I have not truly been your Teacher for more than fifty years.  It is just Robert now, simply and only.”  He took the Apprentice Groom’s hands and urged him up from the stone floor.  Standing, the young Immortal towered over him, an unlikely Goliath with an even more unlikely, affectionate David.  “But what about you, my friend?” Robert continued, looking up into the Apprentice Groom’s mask-like face with a touch of concern.  “I cannot imagine that I am the only one of us to bear a new name.  Why, when I left, you were still serving the Stable Master as his third apprentice.  Surely you have long since moved onto bigger and better things.  What shall I call you now?”

There was a brief silence.  Then, his voice as solemn as a grave, the Apprentice Groom answered:  “Apprentice Groom.”

Awkwardness reigned.  Methos was being torn between smug satisfaction and a morsel of actual pity for the younger Immortal when Bright Sky stepped in.  And instantly proved why she had earned the title of Mother.  “And a much more responsible position it is than ‘Laundry Boy,’ which, if I am not mistaken, Robert here bore for nearly as long,” she said with a twinkle of humor.  She gave the Apprentice Groom a look of warm maternal pride that could have stopped a raging bull.  “But although there is no formal title to go along with job, Apprentice Groom has been working closely with the Guide to learn all the secrets of our guardian sands.  He is the first of our brothers in decades whom Kahvin has trusted so.”

“Is this true?” Robert asked.  The Apprentice Groom nodded, face still set like stone.  Robert clapped him warmly on the arm.  “Well then,” he said merrily.  “I can see that I have much to catch up upon!  Will you excuse us, Mother?  Librarian?”  The twinkle was back.  “I hope we can discuss our mutual friends—and interests-- in more detail later, Librarian.”

Methos nodded gracefully.  Robert smiled, and he and the Apprentice Groom crossed the hall together, Robert talking wildly, the Apprentice Groom replying more sedately but with an expression that was softening more with every moment.  “And I am afraid that I must excuse myself as well, Librarian,” Bright Sky said.  “I have so many things to do!  But these new books Robert was speaking of, the ones from Darius the Great…perhaps I could make arrangements to see them myself?”  She tossed her head a little, causing her veil to settle more flatteringly against the curve of her shoulder.  “You know how found I am of…religious studies.”

Methos ducked his head submissively, as close to a courtly bow as he dared to make.  “I am not certain I have anything left to teach a student of your caliber, Bright Sky,” he said.  “But of course I shall endeavor to study with you anything you might desire to learn.”

Her smile flashed as briefly—and as brightly--as a strike of lightening.  She turned to go…but as she did her hand brushed Methos’s, an “accidental” touch that somehow lasted and lingered before she finally moved away.  Methos watched her cross the hall, foolishly allowing his own smile—subtler, he hoped, and considerably less incandescent under any circumstances—to light his own face.  After a moment he caught himself, corrected his expression, and turned, intending to leave through the great hall’s opposite archway. 

And saw the Apprentice Groom staring right at him.  With an expression as sharp and deadly as a dagger.


	7. Chapter 7

It was not the last time Methos saw the Apprentice Groom looking at him thus.  As the summer went by, Methos often felt the young Immortal’s disapproving gaze on him.  He and Bright Sky were making even more than their usual efforts to be discrete... indeed, with all the extra work the feasting and new arrivals caused, Bright Sky was far too busy for much indiscretion anyway.  Oh, Methos could have come to the obvious, jealous conclusion—that Bright Sky was too tired to come to him because she was spending her nights in Robert’s bed, instead--but Methos strongly doubted it.  He saw with his own eyes how hard Bright Sky worked every day, and the handful of times she did manage to come to him at night she fell asleep in his arms almost the moment her head had hit the pillow.  Methos went back to doing what he’d done almost from the moment he’d first arrived in the Sanctuary:  hanging back, keeping to the corners and shadows, never missing an opportunity to watch his beloved from afar. 

And in turn, the Apprentice Groom watched him. 

Methos was in the gallery overlooking the great hall about two months later when he felt the Apprentice Groom’s Presence.  Normally, the song of the Sanctuary was so strong that Methos could not distinguish any single Presence.  But while the other Immortal signatures had seemed to blend and strengthen as the other Immortals returned, the Apprentice Groom’s had instead begun to stand out.  Or perhaps it was simply that his disdain for Methos was so strong that his aura couldn’t help but reek of it whenever Methos was near.  Whatever it was, Methos was aware of the young Immortal’s presence long before he spoke.  Methos simply stayed where he was, waiting. 

“She is not for you, Librarian.”

There was no point in pretending that he had no idea what the youngster meant.  The evening before, four new Immortals had arrived at the Sanctuary all at once.  The revels now being held in the great hall were even greater than Methos had become used to; there seemed to be a building expectancy, and excitement, that hung palpably in the air.  Bright Sky, as usual, was right in the thick of it, moving with her typical grace amongst the revelers and seeing to it that all were welcomed and fed.  Methos had been watching her intently, following every smile and every step of her feet.  He saw no reason to take his eyes from her now, not for something as paltry as this.  “If you are speaking of Mother, I never said she was,” he answered.  “The lady herself, however, may be of a different opinion.”

“Only because you have bewitched her!”  The words were almost a shout.  Methos didn’t think anyone standing outside the gallery could have heard them, not with all the merry laughter and chatter going on below.  Still, he turned, languidly, just enough to reprove the child with one arched brow.  The Apprentice Groom flushed deeply, but he lowered his voice, although the venomous hiss he used instead was hardly an improvement.  “I know what you are, ‘Librarian.’”

“Do you, now?”

“I do.”  Oh, yes, ‘hiss’ was exactly the right word.  The child could have taken vocal lessons from a snake.  “I know exactly what you are, coming here with your filthy books and your even filthier lusts.  I know exactly what you want to do with Mother.  And I am here to tell you this: you will not succeed.”  The Apprentice Groom took a few steps closer, hands clenched into impotent fists.  “Kahvin dismisses me every time I try to speak to him about you.  Even my Teach—even Robert simply said I was looking for sin where none existed, when I tried to tell him.  But I know better.  And so I tell you boldly:  Mother.  Is.  Not.  For. You.”

Methos turned his head.  For the first time, he favored the Apprentice Groom with a full, head-to-toe, appraising glance; the young Immortal flushed hotly, but his blazing eyes never wavered.  “Tell me, Apprentice Groom,” Methos drawled.  “Whom *is* she for, if not for me?  You, I suppose?”

The Apprentice Groom’s flush deepened.  “I would never dare!” he spat.

“Then whom?”

“She is sworn to God.”  The words were low, almost inaudible over the sounds of revelry coming from the hall.  “But even if she were not…she would not be for the likes of you, Librarian, or even for me.  She has already been claimed by another, one far more worthy than you.  One who will care for her chastely, and would never dream of tempting her into sin.  This you must know, and respect.”  His fists clenched.  “I will make sure that you respect it.”

“Ah.  I see.”  Methos turned back to the balustrade.  He looked down into the hall thoughtfully.  “How old are you, Apprentice Groom?”

The youngster’s face flushed ruddy red.  “It is an insult even to ask such a thing here!” he hissed. 

“Yes,” Methos agreed.  “It is.  Especially since I didn’t really need to ask at all.  You’re young, Apprentice Groom.  Maybe eighty years old, maybe a hundred--it doesn’t really matter.  What matters is what you have yet to learn: no one ever owns a female Immortal.  No, not even if she is your wife or your slave.  Oh, the laws of the land may say you have a right to her property.  Fists and sword may give you temporary ownership of her body.  But her spirit—her fire—will never belong to you.  And believe me, youngster.” He looked reflectively down at Bright Sky, moving amongst the tables.  “Immortal women are nothing *but* fire.”

He hadn’t meant the last comment to sound as lascivious as it did.  But as he said the last word, Bright Sky had given a particularly alluring twist of her hips as she navigated around a table’s corner; the swirl of her skirts and the clench of her shapely buttocks had drawn Methos’s eye as inevitably as a flower draws a bee.  The combination of his gaze and the unconsciously appreciative roughening of his voice were as fuel to the Apprentice Groom’s fire, who began to sputter helplessly.   “You…you…*sybarite!*”

Methos chuckled.  Was the child under the impression that the word was an insult? “Undoubtedly.”

“Bastard! Whoreson!!”

“Quite probably.  I’ve never known for sure.”

So angry now his cheeks were turning purple, and clearly searching every word in his quite limited vocabulary for an insult low enough, the Apprentice Groom muttered one soft word. Methos raised his eyebrows.  “Really,” he drawled pleasantly.  “And here I thought it was my relations with a *woman* you were objecting to.  I have to wonder, young friend, if you actually know what that word means.” He smiled, cocking his head to one side thoughtfully.    “Unless you learned more than just battle skills from your Teacher, of course.  Perhaps he had reasons for taking you on that went far beyond your steady sword arm, hmmm?”

The flare of crimson shame, blind rage, and almost unspeakable pain that flooded the Apprentice Groom’s face was quite something to behold.  Clearly, he wanted nothing more than to pummel Methos into the ground.  His fists curled and uncurled with painful need, but he did not strike.  Methos actually felt a certain grudging respect that the boy somehow managed to get the tide of emotion under control.  The Apprentice Groom clutched his hand in his belt, spoke evenly despite his clenched jaw.  “You go too far, Librarian.”

“Do I?”

“Yessss.”  The words were a venomous whisper.  “Say what you like about me.  But my Teacher is above reproach.”

Methos looked down at the man in question, talking and drinking merrily below.  “I doubt it,” he said frankly.  “No man is above reproach, Apprentice Groom.  That’s another thing the centuries will teach you, should you keep your head long enough to learn it.  But… I will go so far as to admit that I know no harm of your Teacher.  I will apologize freely—to both him and your own good self—if you took my last words as a slur.”    A secretive smirk curved Methos’s lips as he remembered a certain offer of honey mead.  “But before you go running off to yonder Robert to tell him of my insulting words, you might want to make sure that he truly finds them insulting.  It may be that his tastes… in both partners and activities… are far broader than you suspect.”  Methos let his eyes fall over Robert once again, resting for a moment on the handsome, laughing face.  Then he deliberately let his scrutiny fall lower, to assets that were, most definitely, not Robert’s mind. 

The Apprentice Groom followed his gaze, and turned white even as his mouth dropped open.  Then he spun on his heel and strode off. 

***

“You really can be a bastard sometimes, you know.”

It was hardly the first time Joe had ever had cause to say those words to his beloved.  In fact, he’d said them so often over the years that their utterance had almost become a ritual between them, one that lacked any real heat or reproach.  Methos sighed and gave the ritual response.  “Guilty as charged,” he agreed wearily.  “Sometimes I’m just not a nice person, Jobey.  You know that.”  Joe nodded heavily.  Methos looked at him hesitantly.  “I…ah, I take it I don’t have to tell you how things deteriorated from there, then.”

“No, you don’t,” Joe answered.  “God, Methos. You really do like playing with fire sometimes, don’t you? I can see that Apprentice Groom guy so clearly in my mind. Big fellow, long brown hair—taller than you by a good six inches and heavier than you by at least sixty pounds.  Chest and shoulders of a bull.  If he was any good with a sword of all, he would have been living death in a fight.  I can’t believe you...”  Joe started.  “Hold on.  I know that face.  He’s…”

“Eduardo Callix.”  Methos nodded.  “Yes.  I wondered if you would recognize him.  He achieved a certain amount of fame, in Watcher circles.”

“Not just in Watcher circles,” Joe answered, letting his head fall backward against the headboard with a thump.  “He was one of America’s ten wealthiest men, back in the early 1980’s.  Practically ruled Wall Street, until he lost his head on a trip to Paris in ’88.”  Joe narrowed his eyes.  “Wait a minute, Methos.  No Watcher witnessed that Challenge: Callix’s body was just found beheaded in the alley behind his apartment building one morning.  Caused one heck of a lurid scandal in the press, but the Immortal who killed him was never identified. You didn’t…”

“Take his head myself?”  Methos finished.  “Don’t be ridiculous, Jobey.  In 1988 I was still in retirement,  celebrating nearly 200 years Challenge-free—and firmly intending to go on to celebrate 200 more.  The most exciting thing I ever did during the eighties was let Don talk me into playing softball. Well.  That and lose lots of sleep hopelessly pining over *you*.”

Joe smiled softly.  “I can remember doing quite a bit of that myself,” he said, then frowned.   “I suppose Horton must have gotten Callix, then.  He’d started hunting by ‘88.  Not that anybody knew.”

“Possibly,” Methos said, looking unconvinced.  “But I doubt it.  Callix never went anywhere without a whole fleet of mortal bodyguards, Joe. I can’t really see Horton going to the effort of outwitting them.  I always thought it must have been a genuine Immortal who flushed Callix out, made him dismiss his guards so he could fight the Challenge without a witness.  Constantine, maybe—we didn’t have a full-time agent on him then.  Or even Duncan, one of those nights when the kids from the Academy were watching him while he and Tessa visited Paris.  It wouldn’t surprise me if one of the students lost track of him, missed the Challenge, and never ‘fessed up.”

“Hmmm.”  Joe doubted that highly, but decided to let it go.  “Never mind. At the moment I’m less interested in how Callix died during the twentieth century than in this trouble that was brewing between you in the thirteenth.  Trouble that you, my friend, apparently went out of your way to keep bubbling at a steady boil.”  Methos nodded, his expression dark.  Joe sighed.   “I suppose it never occurred to you that the poor kid was just as much in love with his Teacher as he was with Bright Sky?”

“It occurred to me,” Methos answered testily.  “Of course it did.  The way he followed Robert around like a puppy, the look in his eyes when he served him at table or cared for his horse…such devotion is almost never entirely chaste in nature, Jobey.  At least not in human beings over the age of eight.  Of *course* Callix was in love with Robert. And the fact that he’d been brought up to believe that loving another man was the most dangerous of sins simply made it all worse.  It added another layer of pain to an already impossible situation, made him that much more of an emotional powder keg just waiting to explode.  I knew that. I just didn’t care.”  Methos waved his hands helplessly.  “It was just another way to torment him.  Another soft place to stick the knife in.  Not nice, but… I really didn’t like the way he’d treated Bright Sky.  He went from calling her a witch and viewing every single thing she did with suspicion to deciding she was property:  a thing to be fought over and won, not a person in her own right at all.  And I…well. It can’t be denied that even without Bright Sky, his charming personality would have rubbed me the wrong way.”  Methos shrugged morosely.  “Some people just cry out to have ‘kick me’ signs placed on their backs.”

“So you bullied him.”

“Pretty much,” Methos agreed.  “Subtly—I made sure that I never did anything anyone else would notice.  Oh, once or twice I thought about doing something childish like propping a bucket of water over his cell door or pouring salt into his tea.  The person I was then was convinced that he deserved it.  But that would have caused Bright Sky to look at me with disapproval, and that was unthinkable.  So I did the only thing I could do, really.  Took his own favorite weapon…the Dirty Look…and turned it against him.  Only I didn’t bother looking at *him*.  I…”

“You looked at Bright Sky.  And at Robert.” 

“Yes.” Methos nodded.  “Just fleeting glances, when I felt the Apprentice Groom watching me and knew nobody else would see.  I’d wait until Bright Sky’s attention was elsewhere and then lean in close and smell her hair.  Or I’d watch her walk away down a corridor and let my gaze fall down to her hips, a salacious little smile on my face.  Once we were all eating in the Great Hall when Robert got up and leaned across the table to pick up a heavy platter.  I looked first at his biceps, then at his ass—Robert *was* very nicely built—and when I heard the Apprentice Groom start to shift around indignantly I let my tongue come out to lick my lips.  The Apprentice Groom almost knocked over his bench, he stormed away so quickly.” 

Joe couldn’t help it.  He snickered, unable to resist the humor in the picture playing through his head.  Methos smiled faintly too, then sobered.  “I know it all seems funny now, Joe.  But it really wasn’t,” he said seriously.  “I was being intentionally cruel.  And very stupid, too.  The Apprentice Groom had little on his side, after all.  He had no power at all within the keep, next to no respect, and a code of honor that simply would not let him do something sneaky and underhanded to sabotage me the way another man would.  It might have all turned out okay if he’d just propped a water bucket over *my* cell door, instead.  But he couldn’t. So those smoldering, disapproving looks really were his only weapon…and, well, you know me.  When it comes to a Battle of The Body Language with *me*, it’s never a fair fight.”

“It certainly isn’t.”

“Exactly.”  Methos nodded gravely.  “I did everything I could to throw Bright Sky’s love and Robert’s interest in me directly into the Apprentice Groom’s face, taunting him repeatedly with what he thought he could never have.   As pointless and stupid as poking a stick at a bear in a cage, Joe.  Or throwing gasoline on an already smoldering flame.”  Methos’s shoulders slumped inward.  “I shouldn’t have been surprised when it finally erupted.”

Dread suddenly flowed in Joe’s heart, cold and inescapable.  “Methos…”

“Shhh, Joe.”  Methos gave him a sad, hopeless little smile.  “Just hang in there.  My story is almost at an end.  And then you can see for yourself just how it happened that I ended up killing Bright Sky.”


	8. Chapter 8

Something very strange was happening to the Sanctuary’s song.  Always beautiful, as more and more Immortals gathered within the Sanctuary walls that beauty took on a new depth, a new richness of texture…and a new strength, too, the same way that a rope becomes stronger when it is made of many strands.   More than once, Methos found his thoughts wandering off in the middle of a conversation and sometimes even within the middle of a word, suddenly swept away in the loveliness that was the Sanctuary’s new song.  Every time he did and came back to himself, stammering and apologizing for his lapse, he was met with a knowing smile and a quiet “I know, my brother” from whatever Immortal he’d been talking to.  The day the seventy-first Immortal Returned, Methos lost several moments of time in the kitchen gardens, the herbs he’d come to fetch for his inks completely forgotten as the song rolled around him. When he finally came back to himself, tears were streaming down his face, and a redheaded Immortal woman, newly arrived some weeks before, was regarding him sympathetically.   “I know, my brother,” she said, and he saw a single tear of her own trembling at the end of her lashes.  “The more of us there are, the stronger it gets.”  She wiped the tear away, and looked at him curiously.  “Is this the first time you’ve heard so many Immortal voices all singing in one chorus?”

“No,” he said, and frowned, instantly knowing that answer couldn’t be right.  “I mean yes.  It is.  Of course it is.  It’s just that when I hear it, I seem to remember…” He shook his head, awed by the beauty pouring all around him.  “What would it sound like if all of our kind could actually stand on the same patch of Holy Ground at the same time? In peace?”

She’d smiled, and moved to stand close to him, one hand on his shoulder.  “Someday, my brother, we will.  One way or another,” she whispered in his ear, and walked away.  Leaving a completely baffled Methos behind. 

But he wasn’t left much time for confusion.  When the day before St. Denis’s Feast finally dawned, clear and crisp and bright with autumn sunshine, the castle erupted into a celebration that astonished Methos to the tips of his toes.  The welcome feasts of the summer had been lavish, but also entirely innocent, events; Bright Sky seemed to have been right when she said that most of their ‘family’ preferred good food and quiet conversation to the more scandalous entertainments.  But now it was St. Denis’s Eve, and all pretense at innocence quickly went out of window. Methos was woken long before the usual hour for morning prayers by the Guide, giggling manically, with what appeared to be a wreath of late-summer daisies askew atop his hair.  He grabbed Methos by the hand and pulled him, only half dressed, through several of the keep’s long halls until finally they were outdoors, in the sheep pasture to the south of the Sanctuary’s wall, a small grassy space perched atop the craggy cliffs that bordered the deadly sands.    It seemed that every inhabitant of the Sanctuary was already gathered there, every face pointed toward the point where the sun would shortly rise.  The Guide, who had ceased giggling the moment they passed through the Sanctuary’s gate, pressed a finger to his lips, but the warning was unnecessary.  The gathered Immortals were keeping a silence so total it raised the hair on the back of Methos’s arms.  He watched with them, eyes glued to the horizon, seeing the sky lighten more and more with every moment. 

Then the first hint of the sun, brilliant and rosy-red, broke over the world’s edge.  The deafening roar of pleasure and joy that came from every Immortal throat took Methos by surprise…but far more surprising still was the fact that every Immortal within arm’s reach was suddenly trying to kiss him.  They were largely succeeding at it, too—at least, once they all stopped crowding in at once and instead began to take turns.  Methos found himself being passed from arm to arm and mouth to mouth, kissed from every direction.  Some were the chaste, warm, closed-lip kisses of brotherhood.  But most were not.  Methos was just reflecting that he hadn’t had so many tongues in his mouth since the last time he’d attended one of Nero’s orgies when he discovered that the latest warm body to press against his chest possessed curves he actually knew.  He broke away, and found himself looking down into Bright Sky’s dancing eyes.  “You could have warned me,” he murmured.

She twinkled at him.  “And missed the look on your face?” she said, before they were swept away in a laughing, kissing, celebrating Immortal tide, carrying them inexorably through the gates and the inner courtyards and into the keep’s great hall.  There, thanks undoubtedly to Bright Sky, a lavish breakfast was awaiting.  It was fallen on with great joy.  Methos, who had somehow managed not to lose his grip on Bright Sky’s hand in the crowd, found himself being fed honey cakes from her fingers.  He returned the favor, and saw that they were not the only couple in the keep so engaged. 

When the food was largely gone, Kahvin suddenly walked into the hall.  The crowd hushed, but all Kahvin did was look down on them benevolently; he turned toward one of the archways and beckoned.  Two brothers immediately began rolling in several of the large barrels that held the Sanctuary’s strongest home brewed ale.  A few more carried skins of wine.  “Make merry, my children,” Kahvin said.

A cheer went up, and that was that.  From that moment, the party was well and truly underway. 

Kahvin didn’t join in the revelry himself.  He disappeared soon after the first keg was opened.  But the warmth of his Quickening seemed to linger, and that was as intoxicating as any wine.  Before Methos quite knew what was happening, instruments had been produced and sweet music was being played.  Songs were sung, jests were jested, dances were danced, love was…well.  Methos didn’t see anyone actually coupling outright—that seemed to be beyond the celebration’s unwritten rules.  But he was certainly kissed and groped by many, to his somewhat startled but nonetheless great enjoyment.  Methos had more or less resigned himself to being passed around the company as freely as one of the many skins of wine when Robert suddenly whispered in his ear.  “You look like you are enjoying yourself, Librarian,” he said, warmth breathe tickling Methos’s neck.  “But perhaps you and Mother and I might find a place to share that honey mead of Darius’s now?  Someplace a bit more private?”

“Oh dear,” answered the lady in question.  Through all the feasting and drinking and fondling, Methos had never once let go of her hand, and the warm pressure of her fingers had added a sweet note of pure joy to what was already an extremely pleasurable experience.  Her voice was soft, heard only by Methos and Robert.  “I think I must have mislaid those casks in all the confusion—they’ve probably already been drunk by now.  We three are simply going to have to find something else to share.  Perhaps we should adjourn to the library, Librarian? After all, I hear there are many surprising things that can be learned from dusty old books…”

“Or was that from dusty old librarians?” Robert inquired.  He laid two of his fingers very deliberately on the inside of Methos’s free arm, sliding them suggestively from Methos’s elbow down to the pulse point at his wrist.  Methos shivered, his much-kissed lips suddenly hungering to embrace something else entirely.  Robert smiled knowingly and leaned in closer still.  “You don’t look old, Librarian, and you certainly aren’t dusty,” he whispered.  “But I would still be eager to learn any lesson you wanted to teach.”

“Well,” Methos said thickly, feeling more than a little drunk.  “If you put it that way...”

He let them pull him to his feet, out of the Hall, and through the corridors to the library and his cell.  There Methos saw that Bright Sky, in another example of her supernaturally gifted pre-planning, had replaced his narrow rope bed with a huge nest of blankets and pillows, making the normally unforgiving stone floor soft and warm and more than roomy enough for three.  Methos sank down into it, arms spread welcomingly.  And was shortly pleased to discover that he had one or two erotic lessons still up his sleeve to teach.    

He was even more pleased to discover that they had one or two things to teach him, as well.

***

It was early evening by the time they left Methos’s cell, sunset shading the sky outside his narrow window with brilliant scarlets and pinks.  Methos, sleepily curled up with his feet resting on Robert’s thighs and his head tucked into the soft pillow of Bright Sky’s rounded hip, grumbled good naturedly that he was fine where he was.  But both Robert and Bright Sky insisted that he wake.  At sundown there was to be another feast within the great hall, one that neither Immortal wanted to miss.  “Nor will you,” Bright Sky said, pulling a fresh tunic over Methos’s head and smoothing it into place.  “The St. Denis’s Eve feast is something I’ve worked for years to prepare, Librarian.  It makes all our other celebrations look like bread and water in comparison.  You’ll love it.  I promise.”

So Methos let himself be pulled along.  And Bright Sky was right.  This truly was the feast to end all feasts.  The long tables were literally groaning under the weight of all delicacies Bright Sky and her fellow cooks had prepared, and every glass was filled with wine.  Not the Sanctuary-made wine they’d all enjoyed earlier, but something so rare not even Methos could identify it, rich and sweet and having an effect on the senses much like a staff blow to the head.  Methos, who had felt more than drunk enough already—drunk on ale, drunk on sex, drunk most of all on the sweet feeling of acceptance and companionship he’d found in Bright Sky’s and Robert’s arms—let the new spirit spread through his body warmly, blurring the very edges of his mind.  The Song of the Sanctuary sang through him, beautiful and enticing.  For the first time Methos could really hear each and every voice distinctly, could understand the exact way each one fitted and belonged.  And suddenly they were all precious to him, almost more precious than life itself.  He turned on his bench and kissed Bright Sky, deeply and reverently, one hand cupping her breast. 

When they broke everyone at the table was smiling at him, Bright Sky most of all.  She stroked his arm, a tear clinging to one of the scars along her cheekbone.  “Kiss Robert, too,” she whispered.  And so Methos did, turning to where the man was sitting on his other side.  Robert pulled him in, strong arms crushing him close, a strong sense of reverence in his kiss…

And suddenly Methos was snatched away.

He barely felt it, the hand that clutched the tunic at the back of his neck, the force that carried him bodily off the bench and sent him crashing to the floor.  Like that time with the donkey in the courtyard, he was far too distracted by the Song, and what was happening to each of the voices within it.  The strong earthy drumbeat that was Bright Sky suddenly became a shrill, piercing shriek; Robert’s steady chime became an alarmed, discordant clang.  “Eduardo!” Robert bellowed, in a voice of outraged command that Methos hadn’t known he possessed.  “What do you think are you doing?”

The Apprentice Groom did not answer.  Methos had a vague impression of flying brown hair and outraged, reddened eyes before a fist the size of a dinner plate plowed into his jaw.  It knocked Methos backward, sending him careening across the floor. 

A dozen more voices within the Song transformed into sounds of shock and dismay.  Methos thought he heard Bright Sky’s real-world voice join them, entreating the Apprentice Groom to stop.  He didn’t listen.  Another blow smashed into Methos’s face, spreading his nose almost flat, just as a third crashed into his ribs.  Methos was just thinking, in a very dazed, drunken sort of way, that he really should try to do something to stop it…when a calm voice and even calmer Quickening suddenly swept through his awareness, throwing all other voices and impressions aside.  “Apprentice Guide,” it said.  “Stop, my child.  You *must* stop now.”

The attack stopped.  So did practically everything else within the hall.  Suddenly, instead of the cacophony of shocked voices and Quickenings, the only thing to be heard was silence…a silence broken only by the sound of the Apprentice Groom’s harsh, panting breaths.  He was standing with one hand still upraised, an anguished expression on his face.  “Kahvin,” he began, and stopped.  Apparently, he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Be easy, my son.”  Kahvin took a few steps forward.  The Immortals between him and the Apprentice Groom parted like the red sea.  “There is no need to fear. Simply move away from the Librarian—yes, just like that, one or two more steps will do.  Very well.  Now, my child.  Tell me, please.  Why have you interrupted our most sacred celebration with violence?”

The Apprentice Groom’s mouth worked helplessly.  “He…the Librarian…he was…” He looked at first Bright Sky, then Robert, clearly seeking support.  Neither had any to give.  The Apprentice Groom collapsed inward on himself, humungous shoulders sagging as disconsolately as a child’s.  “He dared to touch Mother.”

“But that is no reason, my child,” Kahvin replied, clearly puzzled.  “On this one night, all of our brothers and sisters are free to take whatever pleasures they may.  The Librarian is more than entitled to lay his hands on Mother in whatever way they both found agreeable.”  Kahvin frowned.  “Unless that was the problem, and she did not find his touches agreeable at all.  Was that it?  Mother?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Methos saw Bright Sky reaching out to Robert, grabbing his arm for support.  But her voice was steady and clear.  “No, Kahvin.  The Librarian has never touched me in any way that I didn’t desire.”

“Then clearly the problem lies somewhere else,” Kahvin said.  He turned back to the Apprentice Groom.  “Enlighten me, my child.”

“You don’t understand!”  It was a cry of anguish.   “You don’t understand.  You don’t know what he’s been like all summer, panting after her like a dog, constantly seeking to foul her virtue with his filthy lusts.  And not just Mother.  He…my Teacher…he dared…”  Once again, Methos saw the Apprentice Groom look to Robert for support.  “He had to be stopped!”

Robert shook his head slowly, looking sad.  “No, lad,” he said.  “No.  Not at all, and most especially not by you.  The lady is more than able to look after herself.  And even if she were not…well.  Think you I am not capable of defending her, if defense there truly needed to be?”

The gentle words threw the Apprentice Groom into even more of a lather.  “But you didn’t *see*,” he said, and turned pleading eyes on the rest of the company.  “None of you *saw*.  No, not even you, Kahvin, thought I tried again and again to tell you.  No one saw but me.”  He reached into a pocket of his robe, pulled out a scrap of red cloth.  Methos caught a glimmer of gold embroidery and the shimmer of fine silver beading as the Apprentice Groom held it high.  “Are you all blind?” he asked desperately. “The Librarian does not belong here.  HE DOES NOT FIT.  His very Presence hums out of tune with the rest.  Can I really be the only one who hears it?  He will never truly be a part of our Circle!  His standing here within this hall, on this day of all days, makes me want to be sick.  The very thought that he might be permitted to go to the tides…”  The Apprentice Groom looked around the hall once more, begging anyone and everyone for understanding.  When he found none, both his face and voice hardened.  “Very well.  If the Good God has seen fit to give me alone the eyes to see, then I alone will act.  I will see to it that this abomination doesn’t live long enough to join our tide.”  And suddenly a sword was in his hand.

Methos blinked at it stupidly.  Swords weren’t forbidden within the Sanctuary—in fact, there were special courtyards where many of Kahvin’s children drilled and practiced every day, the better to share techniques and prepare themselves for the outer world.  But Methos hadn’t seen a sword drawn outside of practice in all the years he had been there, and even *in* practice, they were most carefully held—nobody wanted to risk taking a head on Holy Ground.  The fact that the Apprentice Groom had drawn on him now seemed unbelievable.  Unreal.

But nobody else within the hall seemed to have trouble believing it.  Bright Sky gasped and gripped Robert’s arm hard.  Robert whispered “Oh, Eduardo.  Oh, lad,” in a voice as sad as it was shocked.  And everyone else moved calmly and seamlessly, as coordinated as if they’d practiced ahead of time.  Half the Immortals silently formed a line in between the Apprentice Groom and Kahvin, calmly and willingly putting their own bodies between their leader and the sword.  The other half, just as silently, did the same thing between the Apprentice Groom and Methos.    And Kahvin himself spoke, quietly but clearly, every word distinct amongst the rest of the silence.  “Apprentice Groom. My poor, beloved son.  You know what you have done.” He held out his hand.  “Give me your token.  Now.”

The Apprentice Groom looked like he’d been slapped.  His sword clattered to the floor, forgotten.  “No,” he breathed.  “No, Kahvin.  Please.  I cannot…”

“But you must.”  Kahvin’s voice was firm.  “You know our customs as well as I, my son.  You have broken our oldest, most sacred law.  No one who dwells within these holy wall may ever draw a sword in anger—he risks all, not just himself, if he does.  And so you know as well as I what the penance must be.”  The old priest held out his hand.  “Give me your token.”

“No, Kahvin. Please.”  All traces of the Apprentice Groom’s anger had fled.  He looked completely horrified now, skin blanched nearly white.  “Please.  I know that I must go; I will walk the sands willingly, come morning.  But do not take my token.  Let me take it with me.  Let me live in hope that someday, I too might Return…”

Kahvin shook his head.  “No,” he said, voice as cold and final as an executioner’s.  “And you must face your fate immediately, my son.  You will cross the sands now, at once.  Not at dawn.”

A stunned murmur went around the silent crowd.  Bright Sky gasped again.  Robert looked as white as the Apprentice Groom.  And the Guide stepped out of the line where he was standing guarding Methos, horror plain on every feature.  “Kahvin,” he said despairingly.  “He can’t.  The Apprentice Groom cannot cross the sands by night.  It’s hard enough by day.  If….if he should falter…if he should misstep even a little…”

Methos stared, for the first time understanding the gravity of the Apprentice Groom’s punishment.  If the Immortal should stumble in the dark and fall into one of the beach’s notorious sinkholes, he would not die.  He’d simply smother and revive to smother once again, over and over.  Forever...  But Kahvin was unmoved.  “The Apprentice Groom did not wait until daylight to draw his sword,” he said.  “And so I cannot wait, either.  Perhaps, on any other night, I could be merciful.  But this, my child, this is St. Denis’s Eve…” The priest shook his head wearily.  “You all know how important it is that our circle be complete.  How we all must be in harmony, or our rites tomorrow will only bring fear and pain, not joy.  No.  The Apprentice Groom must go at once.  Our Song has already been disturbed enough.”  Gently, Kahvin used his hands to part the line of Immortals in front of him.  He went to the Apprentice Groom, who had sunk down onto his knees.  Kahvin laid a tender hand upon his head.  “Do you understand, my son?”

Methos certainly didn’t.  Perhaps the blows to his head had addled his brain even more than the wine.  Nobody was making any sense.  But the Apprentice Groom nodded painfully.  “Yes, Kahvin,” he said dully.  “I understand.  It must be as God wills.  I will go tonight, in penance for my sin, and for the good of the Circle.  I just—“  He placed the red favor into Kahvin’s hand.  “Tell me that I may still hope to Return.  Someday.  Please.”

Kahvin’s face was pitying.  “No, my son,” he said.  “I am afraid you have forfeited your right to stand within this Circle forever.  You will never join us within the tide.”  The Apprentice Groom bit back a sob.  “But,” Kahvin continued, “it is true, what we say:  all drops return to the same ocean.  Someday, we may yet be together.  You must pray to our good Father in Heaven and let yourself be at peace.”

The Apprentice Groom nodded, looking ashen.  Robert stepped forward.  “Kahvin,” he said.  “If this must be done, let me go with him.  I am the boy’s Teacher; his failings are my own.  I will cross the sands at his side. Perhaps two of us will have better luck than one.”

“I will go, too!”  chimed the Guide.

“No!” 

It was the Apprentice Groom who shouted, looking more terrified still.  Kahvin shook his head regretfully.  “No, my sons,” he answered.  “You two are needed here.  The Apprentice Groom must face his fate alone.  But…” He softened ever so slightly. “You two may help him gather his belongings, and then accompany him as far as the gates.  As may any of our other brothers who so desire.  And Mother? Perhaps you could prepare a travel pack of food, and other provisions.” Kahvin looked back at the Apprentice Groom grimly.  “We will all pray that you live long enough to need it, my son.”

Bright Sky, white as a ghost, nodded sharply and hurried from the room.  She was followed shortly by the Guide, and then by Robert, who had taken his former student firmly by one arm.  The Apprentice Groom’s other arm was taken just as firmly by the Stable Master; the Stable Master’s face spoke eloquently of his sorrow, but also his determination that Kahvin’s will be carried out with no delay.  The Apprentice Groom went without a fight, crimson face turned to the floor.  Several hands were extended to Methos, helping him up and brushing him off; Methos tugged down his tunic and went to Kahvin.  His mind was still reeling over what had happened, how quickly the sentence had been given and was now being carried out.  “Kahvin,” he said, not knowing what to say, but knowing he had to say *something*.  “Kahvin, I…”

“Go in peace, my son,” Kahvin answered.  “What is done, is done.  Nobody blames you.  It all must be as the Good God wills.”  Kahvin raised his voice, addressing the crowd.  “My children!  Attend me, please.  This is a difficult thing, an upsetting thing, but I beg you, do not let your spirits become too heavy.  This is Saint Denis’s Eve.  It is a time for joy—the Good God decreed it so!  And so I must ask you now to continue with your celebration.  Eat well, drink well, prepare for the morrow as you see fit…the candles in the chapel will stay lit until dawn, for those who wish to spend their nights in prayer.  But whatever you do, let your hearts be light.”  He beamed at them all, hands raised in benediction.  “Remember. Tomorrow, we go to the tides!”

“TO THE TIDES!”

It was a roar of joy, happiness, and approval, coming from almost every Immortal throat within the Hall.  And when it was over the gathering dissolved into chatter and laughter, as merry as if the disturbance had never been.  Methos looked around, not entirely sure he could believe his eyes.  The Song of the Sanctuary closed around him, furious with joy.  He thought he could feel a few soberer notes that belonged to Robert and the Guide and Bright Sky.  But the deeper they moved into the keep the harder it was for Methos to track them, until suddenly the almost manic Song of celebration within the hall was all there was.  A hand closed on his shoulder, offering him more of the strange strong drink; Methos, head swimming, declined it and left the hall as quickly as he could.   He went to the library and sought out his cell, pulling the quiet darkness there around him like a blanket.

Some hours later, a knock sounded at the door.  Methos lifted his groggy head.  “Bright Sky?” he whispered to the dark.

“No, Librarian. It is only I.  Robert.”

“Robert?” 

Methos went to the door.  The other Immortal was leaning against the doorpost, more dispirited and forlorn than Methos had ever guessed he could look.  “Forgive me for disturbing your slumber, Librarian,” he said.  “I…. found I had no stomach for the celebration in the hall.  Nor did I wish to spend this night alone.”

“Robert.  Your student.  Is he…”

“Kahvin’s mercy allowed us to give him a candle for his journey.  The mists are very thick tonight, but we watched its light until it disappeared.  Perhaps Eduardo made it to the shore.  Perhaps he did not.  There is no way to know for sure.”  Robert’s hand tightened painfully.  “Normally I would be able to listen for his Presence, but tonight the Sanctuary’s song is so loud…it drowns out all other sound.  And young Eduardo’s voice has ceased to be a part of it.” He looked into Methos’s eyes beseechingly.  “Can *you* hear him, Librarian?  I know it is against the custom to say such things, but…we both know that you have lived long, and have acquired skills the rest of us cannot even imagine.  I would not ask, but…”

“Let me try.”

Methos closed his eyes and…reached, in a way completely impossible to explain to anyone who was not Immortal, and equally impossible to explain to many of them.  It was listening and not listening, feeling and not feeling, seeking for the brittle, angry hum of Presence he had known as the Apprentice Guide.  After several moments, Methos opened his eyes once more, shaking his head in defeat.  “I am sorry,” he said regretfully. “I cannot hear him either, Robert.  As you said, the Sanctuary’s song is too loud.  The only thing I can hear besides it…it’s strange.”  He frowned, trying to brush aside the fog of fatigue and wine in his mind to make sense of what he’d heard.  “It’s almost like there’s another chorus of voices, someplace far away and yet close by, trying to sing along with our own.  I wish that I could hear it better.  I think it would beautiful…”

Robert’s eyes widened. “You hear it, too?” he asked.  Methos nodded.  “Then you, too, will be visiting the Tides tomorrow,” Robert said.  “Oh, Librarian.”  And carefully but passionately kissed Methos on the lips.  

The kiss was sweetness itself—sweetness, blended with pure, unadulterated fire.  And it was even more than that.  Of this whole confusing evening…the banishment of the Apprentice Groom, the odd drink that was still making Methos’s head feel like it was floating a hundred feet above his body, the strange talk of “tides” and the peculiar voices in his head…Robert’s kiss felt like the only thing he could understand.  Methos could almost taste Robert’s grief for his student, his need to bury that grief in the pleasures of the flesh.  But he could also taste the other Immortal’s honest desire for Methos himself, a need that told Methos they would have spent the night like this even if ‘young Eduardo’ hadn’t been forced to cross the sands.  Methos returned the kiss with fervor, hands stroking along the hard curving planes of Robert’s shoulders.  His body shuddered with a deep thrill of bliss as his fingers delighted in the strength that he found there. 

But despite the intoxication of the Sanctuary’s song in his mind and the even stronger madness of the wine within his blood, a question had to be asked.  Methos broke the kiss just long enough to give it voice.  “Mother…”

“She will be spending the night in the chapel,” Robert answered softly. “And if I were as true a believer in the goodness of God and Kavhin’s ways as I should be, doubtlessly I would be with her, content to spend the hours ‘til dawn chastely, in prayer.  As it is…”  He laughed hollowly.  “As it is, I am still enough of a creature of the world to wish for…less divine comforts tonight.  And am relieved beyond words to discover that you are the same.”  

Methos’s answer was another kiss.  He pulled Robert into his cell and kicked the door closed behind them.


	9. Chapter 9

Methos woke, long before dawn, to still another kiss.  This one was from Bright Sky, who had come into the room with a candle in one hand.  She’d knelt down at his side to kiss him awake, and when that was accomplished, promptly leaned over Methos’s shoulder to do the same for Robert—seeming not in the least bit upset or dismayed to find the later curled up, spoon fashion, in a state of severe undress, behind Methos’s back.   Robert woke swiftly, took Bright Sky’s face in both hands and kissed her deeply.  When they broke, Methos was startled to see tears in Robert’s eyes.  “Mother,” he said.  “It is time, then?”

She nodded.  Robert looked her over carefully.  “And have you heard them?  The other voices?”  She nodded again, her own eyes glimmering wetly in the candlelight.  Robert slumped back, taking his weight on his elbows.  “Then it is finally your time, too?  You will come with me to the tides?”

“Kahvin has confirmed it,” Bright Sky answered.   She looked brim-full of some deep happiness Methos could barely fathom, eyes as incandescent as the candlelight.  “After all these years, I will finally be permitted to go.  The Librarian, too.  Kahvin told me just before I left the chapel.”  She took both their hands.  “We will all join the tide together, my dear ones.  My loves.”

“Mother,” Robert breathed.  And another kiss was shared between them, long and deep and tender.  This time when they broke, Robert’s hand lingered on her cheek.  “Mother.  Are you still grieving for Harpist?”

She shook her head, utterly serene.  “I was.  I spent most of the night mourning, in fact.  But how can I have any room in my heart for grief, now that this sacred morning has finally dawned?”  Robert nodded, still looking troubled.  Bright Sky covered his hand with hers.  “Robert.  Let it go.  There is no need to be unhappy.  Not now.”

“No,” he agreed, and Methos saw it—the exact moment when Robert released whatever it was that was troubling him, and let the same peace that Bright Sky was carrying enter his heart.  All the lines around his weathered face seemed to relax—Methos was startled to see that he looked almost as young as a teenager.   Young…and very, very appreciative, eyeing Methos’s naked body with a lust that was stirring in the extreme.  He pushed Methos back into the blankets, giving him a kiss that stirred other things as well…until Bright Sky cleared her throat insistently.  “Well,” she said, eyes twinkling.  “I’m pleased to see that you both once again possess the proper spirit.  But we really must go, my loves.  We must NOT be late.”

“No, m’lady!” Robert agreed joyfully. 

The men dressed quickly, and then for the second time in so many days, Methos was dragged from his cell by hand…back through the keep to the Great Hall, where every single Immortal within the Sanctuary was once again gathered.  They were lined up in rows just as they would for Mass. Methos was kissed several times as Bright Sky led him through the lines of waiting Immortals, but they were just gentle kisses of welcome, not the all-out tonsil fests he’d experienced the day before.  Everyone, apart from Methos and Robert, seemed to have found time to wash their faces and trim their beards, and appeared to be wearing their best robes or clothes—but the fact that he and Robert had not seemed to cause no offense, just a gentle ripple of amusement.  The atmosphere was quieter, more subdued than it had been the night before, but no less joyous.  There was a contagious sense of expectancy in the air.  Methos let Bright Sky tug him into place beside her in the very front line, and curiously waited with all the rest.

Eventually, Kahvin appeared.  “My children,” he said, voice echoing to every corner of the hall.  “I know you cannot see it within these sacred walls, but the sun has just risen.  It is the day we have all been waiting for.  It is St. Denis’s Feast!”

There were assorted cheers.  Kahvin let them die away, then resumed.  “As you know, many of our number will shortly leave the keep to begin our Sanctuary’s most sacred rite,” he said.  “I wish it could be all of us; I wish for it during each and every Return.  Sadly, some of us must stay behind.  But be of good heart, my children.  If you have not been chosen, it only means that the Good God has other work for you, work that cannot be done by any other hand.  So if I do not call your name, do not despair!  Know in your heart that you, too, are Chosen, just for a different task.  And someday it will be your turn, as well.  This I promise.”  There was a murmur of acquiescence from the crowd.  Kahvin smiled benevolently.  “And now it is time to celebrate those who have been called this day, one by one,” he said.  “Please, join me as I call your name.  Stable Master!”

Bright Sky gave Methos’s hand a gentle squeeze and slipped away.  A moment later, Methos understood why she’d gone:  there was a large earthenware bowl placed on a stand near Kahvin’s elbow, with a large ladle propped beside it.  When the Stable Master, looking rather startled, had made his slow way to the front—slow because he was being kissed and embraced by nearly everyone he passed—Bright Sky dipped the ladle inside the bowl and offered it to him.  The Stable Master bent his head and dropped to one knee, drinking the contents as solemnly as if he was receiving communion wine.  “Guide!”  Laughing aloud, the Guide tripped through the lines of congratulating Immortals and knelt at the Stable Master’s side, drinking when Bright Sky touched the ladle to his lips.  “Robert!” Robert smiled, turned, and kissed Methos soundly.  He then joined the others and drank.

One by one, Kahvin called out a name.  Each Immortal called joined the row kneeling in front of Kahvin and drank from Bright Sky’s ladle, until some thirty-odd Immortals were in the line—almost exactly half of the Sanctuary’s current residents.  Methos’s name was called somewhere in the middle.  Still not completely sure what was going on, Methos might have hesitated—but the look of loving pride Bright Sky gave him drew him forward.  He knelt and drank like all the others. 

The liquid in the ladle tasted a lot like the odd spirit of the night before.  But it was, impossibly, a dozen times stronger, and there was a faint herbal taste lurking below its sweetness.  Only a few minutes after he drank Methos felt a warm euphoria spread through him, one he’d never before experienced…no, not once, not even with more than four thousand years of experience with various sacred and recreational substances under his belt.  He wondered giddily how it was made.  Maybe, if Bright Sky told him, he’d finally have something worthy to swap for Darius’s mead recipe…

“And now,” Kahvin’s voice boomed, startlingly loud, “I have just one more name to call…but it is a very special name.  You all know Mother?”

“We do!” shouted the gathered Immortals.

“And you know how well she has served our Sanctuary, how faithfully, how long?”

“We do!”

“Then you know how long she has waited to be included in this rite.  Mother, your long service—and long patience--is about to be rewarded.  Come here, my child.  Come and kneel.”

Looking like her heart was about to burst, Bright Sky did so, surrendering her ladle to Kahvin.  He dipped it into the bowl and served her with his own hands, provoking the loudest cheer yet.  Methos’s own voice swelled out to join it.  “And now,” Kahvin said, a trace of tears in his eyes, “Now, we must go.  To the tides, my children!  To the tides!”

“TO THE TIDES!”

Laughing, shouting, crying, the line of chosen Immortals swept forward.  Methos let himself be carried with it, through the keep and out into bright morning outside, never once thinking to question.  Why would he?  Bright Sky was beautiful.  The new day was beautiful.  His brothers and sisters were all, without exception, the most beautiful beings on earth, people he loved more than any he had ever loved before.  Before?  He may have thought he’d loved in the past, but the truth was, he’d spent four thousand years misusing the word.  This was the real thing.  This was where he belonged…

The chosen ones spilled through the Sanctuary gates and out onto the sands.  Not the dangerous, sink-hole filled sands that guarded the Sanctuary to the south, but the solid ones on the north side of the island, that lay between the Sanctuary and the sea.  It was low tide, the ocean at its furthest ebb.  There was quite a stretch of sand between the cliffs and the water, which shone calmly and peacefully in the morning light.  Kahvin led them, single file, down a rocky path Methos hadn’t even known existed.  Then they marched across the sands, stopping only when Kahvin reached the very edge of the ocean, the steady lap-lap of the waves pouring and retreating across his feet.  He turned to them, face radiant.  “Oh, my children!” he cried.  “How I love you all!”

“As do I!”  “And I!” “We love you, Kahvin!”

For once, the answer was not one voice, but many, each Immortal calling out his or devotion individually. Methos added his own shouted “And I!” when his turn came, and didn’t even think to wonder.  “I know you do,” Kahvin answered when the entire circle had called out to him, and Methos suddenly want to weep: weep at the passion he heard there, at the perfect, beautiful way Kahvin’s earthly voice blended with The Song.  “I know.  And now—”   

Kahvin made a sudden movement.  A sound, as familiar to Methos as his own heartbeat, rang through the air.  It was the distinctive whisper of metal sliding past fabric, the indescribable-- but unmistakable-- sound of a sharp metal blade being drawn.  A moment later, Kahvin was wielding a huge sword, the blade almost as long as he was tall.  He held it out before him like a cross.

Methos stared.

All around him, he heard it.  The unmistakable sound repeated again and again as Immortal after Immortal drew their swords, until finally every last one was armed.  Kahvin regarded them all, well pleased.  “And now it is truly time,” he murmured. “Battle well, my children.”

Pandemonium.

The air was suddenly full of battle cries, full of the ring of steel on steel.  Methos turned to his left.  Robert was fighting the Stable Master, faces calm and utterly business-like as they faced each other in the surf.  Methos turned to his right.  The lady who had spoken to him in the herb garden was there, battling a newcomer Methos knew only by the distinctly Spanish tunic he wore.  All around him, Immortals were pairing off, swords flashing brilliant in the sun.  Methos, who had drawn his own sword instinctively, let it dangle loosely from his hand.  Surely, this all had to be some harmless ritual no one had bothered to tell him about, Challenges fought just for sport.  It couldn’t be real… 

But a moment later the redheaded lady’s body, heart pierced by the Spaniard’s blade, fell to the sand.  Her head fell a split second later.  And suddenly Methos knew why Kahvin had led them down the cliffs and into the surf, so far from the Sanctuary’s sacred walls.

They were no longer standing on Holy Ground.

The sky went grey.  Clouds rolled out of nowhere, seeming to almost boil above the ocean as the lady’s Quickening arched out of her fallen form.  It flashed up to the sky and back down again, striking the Spaniard, who screamed out in tortured ecstasy.  Another cry joined his, and Methos whirled around to see a second kneeling body, and a second falling head.  The scent of blood rose up to fill his nostrils, sharp and nauseating.  Numb, head still swimming from the herbal elixir, all he could do was clutch his sword, and stare…

“Librarian?” 

It was a quiet voice, gentle and soft.  Methos turned yet again, to find the Guide kneeling humbly at his feet.  In his arms he bore a small arming sword.  “Librarian,” he said, eyes rapt and shining.  “You are so…oh, I don’t have the words!  But we all know that you are so much more than the simple caretaker of books you claim to be.  Would you face me?  I can think of no one whose hand I would rather fall to.”

Methos’s eyes almost bugged out of his head.  “You—you want me to fight you?”  There was another scream of triumph behind him, followed by a cry of pain; he dared not turn around to look.  “You *want* me to take your head?”

“If the Good God so decrees,” Guide said serenely.  “Or should the tides flow the other way…oh, Librarian, it would be my honor to carry *you*!  Even for as short a time as this.  In this place, with the love of our brothers and sisters all around, I will be strong enough to contain you…you needn’t fear your loss.”  He pushed the sword more fervently toward Methos.  “Your burden can finally be lain down, my brother.  Whether I take you or you take me, in the end there will only be one winner, and Kahvin will take his head; there, we will all be together forever.  Let us flow together as joined souls. We will reach the great ocean side by side…”

“No.” 

Methos whispered it brokenly, disbelievingly, the word lost to the crashing of the waves and the yells and cries of battle all around him.  “No.”  He said it a little louder now, although this second denial was drowned out.  A crack of lightning and another scream of ecstatic pain filled the air, indicating that yet another Challenge had been fought to its inevitable end.  “No.  No!  NO!”

The Guide blinked.  “Well, you don’t have to be quite so loud about it,” he said.  “It’s all right, Librarian.  I know there are many others amongst our company who are far more worthy.  I simply wanted to ask.”  He got to his feet, brushing the sand off his knees and eyeing the field of battle curiously.  “Perhaps Robert will fight you, if he survives his current battle with the Stable Master.  Here, give me your hand.  We will go see…”

“No!” 

Methos wrenched himself away, dodging Immortals left and right as he pelted down the beach.  The sky boiled even more fiercely overhead.  The sea itself began to steam.  A wave, its touch as hot as molten metal, splashed up and brushed across Methos’s sandal.  Methos stumbled, but managed not to fall into the water, instead landing heavily on the sand.  He pushed himself up…just in time to see Kahvin embracing Bright Sky.  And then to see Bright Sky, smiling beatifically, fall to her knees before him, eagerly baring her beautiful neck...

Kahvin smiled, too.  His sword flashed and fell.

“No...” 

As the energy that was Bright Sky’s Quickening gathered…she was so old that it took some time to build, and as it did the very earth began to tremble, vibrating like a plucked harp string under Methos’s feet…Methos whispered the word in agony, grief like a thousand knife points stabbing into every inch of his beating heart.  Grief not just for Bright Sky, whose blood was now staining Kahvin’s robe and whose headless body was already being embraced by the rising tide, but grief for something more: the end of a dream, the end of the home he’d thought the Sanctuary could be.   “No.  It can’t be real,” he said. But it was all too real—the Immortal bearing down on him with the upraised sword and the manic glint in his eye proved it. Methos defended himself as best he could—

The first bolt of Bright Sky’s Quickening rent the air, barely missing striking Methos’s sword.  It earthed in the ground between him and his attacker.  It was so powerful that it split the beach, carving a wide chasm that instantly filled with bloody, boiling sea.  The Immortal who had been attacking Methos shouted and jumped backwards, but Methos wasn’t watching him: no, he was looking at Kahvin.  Their eyes met.  Methos was sure that his held all the horror and betrayal he was feeling, but Kahvin’s were calm.  The old man simply nodded, raising one hand in what could have been either benediction or farewell.  Then he turned to survey the rest of the battlefield.

Methos clutched his sword, and ran.


	10. Chapter 10

“Methos.”

There was no answer from the other end of the bed.  It only took Joe one glance to understand why.  His love was grey-faced and physically shaking, reliving again those last horrible moments on the beach.  Joe felt pretty shaky himself.  He pushed himself down the bed and pulled his beloved into his arms, saying nothing, just holding on until the worst of the trembling was over. 

When it was, Methos spoke.  “I couldn’t save her, Joe.”

“I know.”

“I would have tried.  I *did* try, the moment I finally understood.  But she was already kneeling at Kahvin’s feet, and there were a dozen fighting Immortals in between me and her.  There--there was no way I could reach her in time.”

“I know, love.  I know.  It wasn’t your fault.”

“But it was.”  Methos pushed himself away.  “Don’t you see?  Bright Sky had lived at Kahvin’s side for centuries, through God alone knows how many Leavings and Returns. Kahvin could have taken her head at any time.  But she was too useful to him, mothering everyone, keeping the Sanctuary’s peace…until I came along.  And caused a scandal that was just too big to ignore.” 

“Methos…”

Methos silenced him with one abruptly raised hand.  “I know what you’re going to say,” he said, much more quietly.  “I’ve probably said it all myself, at one time or another.  After all, I’ve had centuries to lie to myself about it, to come up with every possible excuse.  I’ve told myself over and over again that Bright Sky was a woman more than capable of making her own choices, who knew exactly what she was risking when she came to my bed.  Or that neither of us could have known just how on edge the Apprentice Groom had become, that he was actually far enough gone to draw steel on Holy Ground.  But the truth of the matter is…I did know.  Or at least, I saw enough that I could have put the pieces together and seen the whole picture, if I’d cared to.  But I didn’t.  I was far too busy enjoying making the poor bastard squirm.”  He bit down on his lip for a moment.  “There isn’t any other way to look at it, Jobey.  I deliberately needled the kid until he broke—until his honor left him no choice but to Challenge me, then and there, right in the middle of Sanctuary’s Great Hall.  Which meant that no one could continue to ignore Bright Sky’s affair with me.  Her position within the Keep was compromised, completely and forever.  So Kahvin had ‘God’ decide that it was time for her to lose her head.” 

Joe tried again.  “Methos…”

“No, Joe.  There’s nothing you can say that can make this one better.  The best you can do is simply let it be.”  Joe shivered. For once his beloved looked every year of his five millennia, perhaps even older. “I don’t do guilt,” Methos said quietly.  “You know that.  You’ve heard me lecture MacLeod about it often enough.  An Immortal as old as I am can’t let hold himself responsible for every misstep, every mistake—there’s just too many.  He’d go mad.  And so I don’t feel guilty over this.  But I do…regret.”  His face set into the deep, pained lines of old, old grief.  “I think I always will.” 

Joe didn’t answer. He understood Methos’s pain, and while his heart ached in silent sympathy, Joe found he couldn’t quite agree with his conclusions.  In his mind, he saw it all again…the fury of the Immortal battle, and Bright Sky’s sweet, blissful face as she’d knelt in the sand.  She’d gone to her death so happily.  They all had, and somehow Joe didn’t think that religious piety alone—or even whatever the heck was in that magic Kool-Aid Kahvin had made them all drink--was the entire reason why.  There’d been something else, too.  That hum in the air… It was a sound Joe knew he’d heard before, although trying to recall just where and when was as frustrating as trying to catch hold of a goldfish in his fingertips.  The memory kept wriggling away…

Joe spent a few fruitless moments chasing after it, then let it go.  “I don’t know,” he said heavily.  “There’s something really strange in all this, something I can’t quite put my finger on. Methos…why is this the first I’ve ever heard of any of this?  More than thirty Immortals losing their heads all in one day is a pretty big event.  How come there’s no mention of it the Chronicles?  Surely, the Watcher observing the Sanctuary from the village would have seen all the lightning and investigated.”

Methos raised his eyebrows. “Why do you think, Joe?”  His tone implied that Joe was missing something very simple.

Only the supreme seriousness of the situation kept Joe from rolling his eyes.  “Because you were the Watcher assigned to the Sanctuary,” he said.  “You probably arranged to relieve whoever was originally there before you even left Darius, so there was no danger anyone would see you being accepted by the other Immortals as one of their own.  I really should have figured it out earlier.”  Methos nodded.  “Do you know…did anyone survive?” Joe asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“The lightning stopped soon after I reached firm land.  Once I was sure I wasn’t being followed, morbid curiosity made me climb a cliff and look back.  As far as I could see, Kahvin was the only Immortal who left the sands alive.” A look of bitter self-crimination filled the ancient eyes. “Besides me, of course.”

“Yeah.  Besides you.  Thank god.”  Joe said fervently.  The scene from the beach flashed through his mind again, the shaking earth, the churning, bloody tide.  One misstep, and Methos would never have reached the shore, would have fallen victim to the Sanctuary’s deadly sands forever.  Joe shivered, then resolutely turned his mind back to the matter at hand.  “But I still don’t understand.  Why, Methos?  Why on earth did Kahvin do it?  He was supposed to be one of the good guys.  A man of God…” 

“Why do any of our kind ever do anything, Joe?  To win the Game.”  Methos gave a disgusted shake of his head.  “In a way, you almost have to admire him.  Why bother hunting Immortals yourself when you can inspire a few dozen faithful followers to do it for you? And then get them to surrender and kneel before you, offering all the power they’d ever gained, just like so many carefully fattened sheep?  Kahvin didn’t even have to clear away the bodies.  The evening tide took care of it all.”  A bitter laugh.  “Really, the whole Sanctuary system was the most brutally brilliant way to harvest Quickenings I’ve ever run across.  Horton and Xavier St. Cloud were pikers by comparison.”

“Yeah, but…”  Joe’s forehead wrinkled.  That faint memory-fish was wriggling through his mind again, tantalizingly out of reach.  “But it had to be about more than just that.  I mean, Kahvin didn’t really want to win the Game after all, did he?  It was only a few centuries later that he walked out of the Sanctuary gates, crossed the sands, and willingly gave his head to the Kurgan on the shore.  Why?”

Methos made an impatient noise.  “Maybe, like Darius, he ended up taking a Light Quickening that finally made him develop a conscience,” he said.  “Or maybe the weight of all that power finally drove him completely insane.  Who knows?  And more to the point, who cares? Kahvin died in 1693.  In 1695 the Watchers bought the island from the Church and eventually turned it into their own bastardized version of a Sanctuary from the Game…keeping Immortals drugged and warehoused in metal strait jackets.  Or at least they did, up until Jacob Kell and Young MacLeod came along.  Fortunately, by then the place was no longer Holy Ground.  The Watchers had the land deconsecrated, just in case any of the Immortals ever did escape and was too disoriented to hold back his sword.  A wise move, given what happened later with Kell.  Nobody wants another Pompeii.”

Joe shuddered.  “God.  No.” 

“No.”  Methos nodded at the little square of red fabric he’d carried in from the bathroom, now resting so innocently atop of Joe’s dresser.     “So.  I repeat: Kahvin died in 1693.  And as you pointed out, the last known Bloody Hunt was in 1590, just a few years before MacLeod’s birth.  The centuries since then have been pretty quiet. I had thought that, with Kahvin’s death, the hunts had ended for good.  But apparently I was wrong.  So now the only question is why, more than three hundred years after Kahvin’s death, his followers have suddenly decided to once again take up the crusade.  And why one of them would have gone to the trouble of finding *me*.”

Joe shivered again.  But he couldn’t let that stand.  “Follower.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, ‘follower’.  Singular, not plural.”  Joe shook his head emphatically.  “There’s no evidence that the Immortal you fought today was part of some great big conspiracy.”  

“He was carrying the bloody Bloody Favor, Joe!”

“Yeah, all right,” Joe agreed.  “He was.  But we don’t know why.”  He eyed his husband sharply.  “Unless I’m reading things wrong, and you ended up with his memories after all?”

“No.  Not so much as a flash.” 

 “Well, then,” Joe said.  “There’s no way for us to tell how he came by the Blood Favor in the first place.   For all we know, he found the thing in an antique shop somewhere and picked it up as a lucky charm.  We don’t know that anyone else is carrying one.  We don’t know that it’s a trend.  And we *especially* don’t know that he had any special reason to go after you. ”

“No? He called me ‘Librarian’ just before he died!”

“That’s really what he said?  There’s no way you could have misheard?”  Methos shook his head slowly, mouth narrowed to a thin line.  Joe sighed.  “Okay.  I agree, that’s pretty damn scary,” he said.  “But let’s look at it logically.  We know he couldn’t have been at the Sanctuary at the same time you were, back in 1242.  You didn’t recognize him, and anyway, you said he felt too young.  So if there’s a connection with that time period at all, another Immortal who *was* there must have told him about you and sent him here to Challenge you.  Am I right?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time an Immortal I had a disagreement with sent one of his students to find me, Jobey.”

“No.  Of course not. But the problem with assuming that’s what’s happening now is we then have to figure out who that older Immortal might be.  And that’s where that theory starts to fall apart.  Everyone you knew well at the Sanctuary died that day on the shore, Methos.  Kahvin himself died just a few centuries later.  We know that Eduardo Callix survived his journey across the quicksand…but we also know that he lost his head in 1988, so it can’t be him, either.  Can you think of anyone else from that time that you could possibly have pissed off enough to still hold a grudge almost eight hundred years later?  Someone who still has his head?”

“Immortals are world champions at holding grudges,” Methos said tartly.  “And it’s always amazing who survives to haunt a man centuries into the future, turning up at the worst possible moment.  But…” He wilted slightly.  “Now that you mention it…no.  No, I can’t think of anyone.  And the youngster who challenged me today certainly didn’t act like he was carrying out a vendetta.  It was more like he *wanted* to fight me.  Wanted me to take his head…”  Methos trailed off, looking confused.  With a great effort, he shook his head and refocused on Joe.  “Are you trying to tell me it’s not time for Emergency Procedure A, then?”

“I don’t think so,” Joe said.  “Not yet.  Emergency Procedure A is reserved for three situations only—we agreed on that when we first moved to Las Cruces.  First, someone we can’t sweet talk or bribe sees you do something inexcusably Immortal—healing from a death or taking a head.  Second, the Watchers somehow stumble over us, discover that Alex Porter and Jobey Darwin used to be Adam Pierson and Joe Dawson.  Neither of those things has happened here...”

“And what about the third?”

Joe sighed.  “‘An Immortal you don’t want to fight, one capable of hurting the Sprout or me to further his goals, is hunting you and won’t take no for an answer,’” he quoted soberly.  “Yeah.  Maybe that is what’s happening here.  But I’m not convinced, Methos.  What evidence do we have, after all?  One word and a scrap of cloth?” Joe gestured at the Bloody Favor dismissively. “Like I said, the favor could be a good luck charm, or some kind of keepsake handed down from his Teacher that the kid didn’t really understand.  And as far as being called ‘Librarian’ goes…well, you’ve worked in a LOT of libraries over the years.  Maybe once upon a time our boy just stumbled over you in one of them.  Or mistook your job at the University, thought you were a librarian there instead of a professor…”

Methos turned dark, disbelieving eyes on him.  “Do you really think it could be that simple, Jobey?  Is it *ever* that simple?  For *us*?”

“No,” Joe answered huskily.  “No, okay, I don’t.  But I still think we don’t have any idea what the real story here is, and I don’t want to run until we do.  We’re as safe here as we can be, after all—we have weapons, secure ways to access the chronicles, and several bolt holes we can hide in if we have to.  I don’t want to give all that up just yet.  Not until we have a better idea whether or not we’d just be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.” 

Methos didn’t exactly look convinced, but he was thinking it over.  Joe could tell.  “So what do you think we should do instead?” he asked.

“What we would have done anyway,” Joe said staunchly.  “What we do *every* time you or Mac comes up against an Immortal you’ve never run across before. Good old fashioned research, my friend. As soon as the University switchboard opens at seven, you are going to call in sick.  And then we are going to hack back into the Chronicles and spend the day searching for your ‘workout partner.’ We’ll also do our best to trace everyone who was at the Sanctuary in 1242, and find out if anyone else has fought a Challenge recently with someone who bore the Bloody Favor.  By this time tomorrow, we should know a whole lot more.  Then, it might be time to run.  Not now.”   

Methos was looking at him, half in wonder, half with a fierce, possessive tenderness that made Joe’s toes curl.  “I love you, Jobey Darwin.”

“I love you, too.”

“Why the hell do you put up with all this shit from me?”

“I think I have to refer you to my previous answer,” Joe answered.  “Besides.  It’s *our* shit, now.  For better or worse, remember?”  Methos shook his head, still looking wondering.  Joe took his hand.  “So how did you like my plan?  Got any objections or additions to make?”

“Maybe just one,” Methos answered.   “I have no objection to calling in sick.  I don’t think I ever have, so far, and it’s always good to have at least a few sick days on one’s record.  There’s nothing quite so suspicious as perfect attendance to someone actively looking for Immortality.  But do we have to wait until tomorrow to access the Chronicles?  Tired as I am—as I know we both are—I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep until we’ve at least made a start.”

“I’ll make another pot of coffee.”  

***

Somewhere around five o’clock the next morning, Methos found his Challenger.   The sudden silence of his typing fingers caused Joe, who had been steadily snoring on the couch at Methos’s side since three-thirty, to stir; he sleepily mumbled something about a 1950 Chevrolet and a hot plate.  Methos stared at him for a moment—what strange episode from Methos’s past could Joe possibly be dream-living now?  But whatever it was, it didn’t seem to be too disturbing.  Joe just settled his body more firmly against Methos’s and went back to sleep, head securely tucked into Methos’s shoulder. 

Methos watched him sleep for a while, considering.  Joe would probably be angry later that Methos hadn’t woken him the moment he’d found their quarry, but he needed the rest.  It had been well past midnight before Joe had finally admitted that Methos’s Immortal eyes could to do a much better job of scanning and searching the Chronicles than his very tired mortal ones.  Even then, Joe had stayed awake for several hours more, tirelessly fetching coffee and giving neck rubs and support.  Now that he was asleep, Methos wasn’t going to disturb him—and truth be told, Methos was just as glad to keep the discovery to himself for a little while, to have a few moments alone to reflect and plan.  He brushed a tender hand over Joe’s hair and resolutely turned his eyes back to the screen.

Name: Jean-Marc Bredoux.  Birthplace: Paris, France, circa June 1948.  Like all pre-Immortals, Bredoux been discovered abandoned as an infant, and the sisters at the orphanage he’d been raised in had simply made their best guess.   First death: also in Paris, just a scant eighteen years later in 1966, when the young Jean-Marc and three of his mates had been involved in a horrific car crash only Jean-Marc had ‘survived.’  This last was *not* a guess, as both crash and resurrection had been witnessed by one of the most reliable Watchers Methos knew: Dr. Amy Zoll, future Head of Special Research, who at the time had still been a wet-behind-the-ears field agent assigned to Grace Chandel.   In one of the most stunning examples of Immortal good luck Methos could think of, Grace had actually been on the scene when the car crashed, shopping in a boutique just a little way up the street. She’d assessed the situation immediately, done what little she could for the mortals, and then managed to get the newly-born Immortal Bredoux discreetly off the streets and to her home.  Where somehow or other she’d managed to explain just what had happened, and what the young man’s life was to be from that day on… 

Naturally, Bredoux had become Grace’s student, staying more or less at her side until he’d taken his first head in ‘75.  At that point, he’d moved to New York City. For a young Immortal living in the Challenge-heavy water that was 1970’s New York, Bredoux seemed to have led a fairly quiet and blameless existence.  According to his Chronicle, he never actually instigated a Challenge, but still easily won against anyone who Challenged him.  This made sense, of course. Grace had seen to it that the youngster hadn’t just studied swordsmanship with her, but had also taken lessons from every other Immortal in France she could find who, to quote one of Methos’s old Dungeons and Dragons playing Watcher colleagues, had at least a “neutral good” ethical alignment.  Before he left Paris, Bredoux had taken lessons from Constantine and Thackery and even from Darius, who had apparently taught Bredoux a great deal about conditioning and strategy even if he had never actually sparred with the boy himself.  Which did at least explain why the pup had been so damn *good* with a sword, despite being barely seventy years old…

…and might even explain why he had called Methos ‘Librarian’.  Methos and Grace really hadn’t known each other that well.  They’d certainly never been lovers, like Grace and Constantine had.  But since they’d both been part of Darius’s Really (Really) Old Parisian Immortal Social Club, it was inevitable that they’d meet each other at the church from time to time.  And while Grace hadn’t known about the Watchers, she *had* known that Methos worked as a researcher for some kind of private historical trust, a fact that amused her no end.  Now that Methos thought about it, he could recall Grace calling him ‘Librarian’ mischievously once or twice over a mug of Darius’s mead.  It was her way of gently teasing him about what she saw as his deplorably nerdy habit of constantly reading about life instead of simply living it.  It was just barely possible that at some point she might have pointed Methos out to young Bredoux from a distance and called him by that name, without Methos ever knowing. 

Possible.  But extremely unlikely.

Damn.

Methos shoved the laptop irritably away.  Well, at least the Chronicles had explained one thing. Methos now understood why the young Immortal hadn’t been Watched.  The last entry in Bredoux’s Chronicle had been written in 1995, by a field agent named Sharon Shapiro.  She’d closed her report by stating that Bredoux would be un-Watched until a temporary agent could be assigned, since she had to fly to Paris because of a ‘family emergency’. 

Methos, who knew full well who Sharon Shapiro was—Jack Shapiro’s only daughter, twin sister to David—also knew exactly what that family emergency was: David Shapiro’s death at the hands of Jacob Galati.  Poor girl.  According to Joe, Sharon had left her assignment in New York to fly to Paris for her twin brother’s funeral.  By the time she’d landed, almost the entire Watcher Council had been murdered and her father had gone insane, determined to start an all-out Immortal/Watcher war.  In all the chaos that followed, it wasn’t too surprising that no one had thought to assign a new field agent to Bredoux; Sharon herself had never returned to duty.  Once the dust had settled, she’d requested a medical retirement for “extreme fatigue and burnout”, a request Joe himself had quietly made sure was granted.  Sharon was lucky that he had, as the Watchers were extraordinarily difficult to leave in any other way.  The last time Joe had heard from her, Sharon had removed her tattoo and seemed to be astonishingly happy, working as a history teacher in an underprivileged high school in LA.  Apparently dealing with the inner city drugs and gangs was a piece of cake compared to what she’d survived in Paris.

And so Bredoux had fallen through the cracks.  By the time Joe had rebuilt the Watchers enough for Bredoux’s non-Watched status to be noticed, more than a year had gone by, and the young Immortal could no longer be found.  Lost his head?  Simply changed address?  There was no way for the Watchers to be sure.  Bredoux’s Chronicle had been filed under “incomplete”, and that, as they say, was that.  Nobody else had seen him.  And with field agents always in short supply, no one had ever really bothered to look. 

So Bredoux’s showing up in Las Cruces without a Watcher was all perfectly logical.  Utterly explainable, as simple to understand as two-plus-two.   There was no reason at all for Methos to be suspicious.  Except…

Except that he was.

Methos used the arm currently unoccupied by Joe to rub at his tired eyes.  God.  He was old, he was paranoid, he could easily be smelling a rat where only cute and cuddly hamsters truly roamed.  But surely no one could blame him for thinking that the whole story seemed a bit too neat?  Even if Methos accepted that Bredoux had good reason to be un-Watched and call him ‘Librarian’…well, it still didn’t explain what the hell the boy had been doing in Las Cruces.  It didn’t explain why he had broken the apparently non-aggressive habits of a lifetime to seek Methos out and Challenge him.  And it most definitely didn’t explain why he was carrying that damned square of scarlet cloth, since neither Grace nor Constantine nor Thackery had ever had anything to do with Kahvin or his so-called “Sanctuary”.  It was far, far easier to believe that Kahvin’s students had somehow found each other and reformed, recruiting others until they once again had enough members to engage in the Bloody Hunt… 

This thought alone was enough to make Methos itch to implement Emergency Procedure A.

But.  Joe had been right, too.   Even if the hunts *were* beginning again, there was no reason…yet…to believe that the Favor Bearers were hunting for Methos’s head in particular.  And Las Cruces was their home now.  They knew the neighbors, they knew the terrain-- they had worked hard to make the place as defensible as possible.  Without a better idea of what they were facing, there was no way to really know if they’d be safer running than staying put.

And besides. Bredoux hadn’t *fought* like a hired assassin, like a man simply doing a job.  No, he’d fought…

Methos pulled the laptop back into place and navigated to the top of Bredoux’s Chronicle, clicking twice on his profile photo.   The screen filled with the expanded picture of the slender blonde man, wearing a faded denim jacket, acid-wash jeans, and a Nirvana Nevermind t-shirt.  Methos dated the whole ensemble to the early 1990’s, as he was fairly sure he’d once seen Richard Ryan rock almost the exact same look.  There the similarities ended, however.  Jean-Marc possessed a beauty that compared to Richie’s boyish good looks the same way that a snow leopard compared to a golden retriever puppy. Both were lovely.  Only one would you consider taking home to feed…

But the strange thing was this. As competent and fearless a predator as Bredoux had clearly been—and his odd, aquamarine eyes were shouting it, even in the decade-old photo—he hadn’t fought like he’d really wanted Methos’s head.  No.  Instead he’d tantalized, encouraged, aroused: in short, he’d done everything he could to see that Methos took his.  Not just manipulating Methos into winning, but manipulating Methos into winning *everything*, prolonging the combat until his surrender was complete.  It was…

It was exactly the way Methos might have planned to fight MacLeod, once upon a time.

Methos let his head fall back against the couch, overcome by a tide of confusion he couldn’t even begin to resolve.  Joe undoubtedly thought Methos hadn’t received Bredoux’s memories because the boy had fought too well for their Quickenings to decide the true winner.  Methos knew differently.  If he closed his eyes, he could still feel the sweetness of the young man’s surrender.  More than that. Methos would have sworn on his soul that Jean-Marc’s surrender hadn’t been forced at all…that the child’s Quickening had voluntarily chosen Methos to carry it forward, just as Methos’s Quickening had once chosen MacLeod.  Which meant that none of this evening’s painful exercises with the Chronicles should have been necessary.  The moment the Quickening had settled, Methos should have known Bredoux’s name and motivations as completely as he knew his own. 

But Methos didn’t.  He couldn’t even taste the boy’s favorite food on his tongue or hum a few bars of his most-loved song, two memories that almost always transferred to a victor’s Quickening, even when everything else was lost.  Why not? 

Was the fault in him?  Could Methos finally have gotten too old to truly absorb another’s Quickening, even when that Quickening was practically handed to him on a plate?  Methos desperately wanted to start pouring through the Chronicles, find out if any other older Immortal had ever experienced anything similar.  But he already knew it was pointless.  Joe was the only Watcher in history to have ever known the truth of what was really lost and gained during a Quickening.  Even if he wasn’t…there were very few Immortals that had ever even approached Methos’s age, and Methos already knew every word of their Chronicles by heart.  Sadly, he was on his own.

Joe had brought the boy’s Bloody Token into the office with him, leaving it glittering ominously in the sharp pool of light cast by Methos’s desk lamp.  Methos gazed at it now, irritably shaking his head.  God.  He didn’t understand any of this.  He didn’t understand why the Quickening hadn’t carried the boy’s memory to him along with everything else.  He certainly didn’t understand why the child had Challenged him at all, or why he’d been carrying this token from Methos’s long dead past. Most of all, Methos didn’t understand why just the sight of the little scrap of beaded cloth should fill him with such a strong, stomach twisting dread, when he *knew* Kahvin was long gone, as were all the Immortals at the Sanctuary with any reason to take his head.  There was no logical reason for him to feel so afraid.

Except, once again, that he did.

Methos frowned thoughtfully. Amanda had recently, and only half-teasingly, e-mailed him information on an island for sale near Barbados, which in her opinion was both easily defensible and steal at a mere eleven million USD.  She seemed to think it would be the perfect place for Mr. Darwin and Dr. Porter to spend their retirements, when the day came that Methos once again could no longer hide his failure to age.  But why wait? It would be so easy to buy it now and run.  Just grab Joe and spend a decade or two in paradise…

But Joe made a sleepy sound, tossing a little in his sleep, and as Methos looked down at him, he knew he wouldn’t suggest it.  It wasn’t that he was afraid of acting like a coward.  During his long life, cowardice had often been a true and rewarding friend.  But he was afraid of making such a move when he didn’t know just what they were up against.  And he also knew, as he often told Joe with terrible pain-in-the-ass-ish arrogance, that the best response to any unforeseen dilemma was almost always to do nothing.  Wait.  Learn. Grow stronger. And fight…or run…another day.

At least this time—for the first time in many millennia--Methos knew for absolute certain that he wouldn’t be doing any of it alone.

He turned the laptop off.  Then he woke up his beloved just enough to walk him to bed under his own power, and tucked him in for what little remained of the night. 

 


	11. Chapter 11

_~Las Cruces, New Mexico, October 2008~  
~10 Months Later~_

The second time Methos felt a strange Immortal presence in New Mexico, he was buying his ritual lunchtime coffee from the cart outside the Linguistics Science building. 

This time, he was considerably less surprised.

It was always interesting, seeing how a fellow Immortal had adapted his personal grooming to the present era.  Few ever changed their look to completely match what was currently in fashion; there was always some giveaway, some throwback to their early years, that one could see if one looked hard enough.  MacLeod had grown back his ponytail.  Amanda’s jewelry, no matter how modern it looked at first glance, usually had some small detail or other that echoed the lush medieval pieces she’d first seen in Rebecca’s castle.  Methos himself would have frequently walked out the door wearing colors his first people had loved but which no modern man would have ever combined if Joe hadn’t been there to stop him.  It was just a part of being what they were.  No matter how hard he tried, no Immortal could never entirely keep his past from leaving its mark upon his present.

This one had done better than most.  The last time Methos had seen him, he’d been wearing the rough woolen robes of a novice monk; he’d been a great hulking brute of a man, far more muscle than brain, with wild hair down to his shoulders and a beard that had never seen much tending.  All of that was gone now, save for the shoulders and the chest.  And even they were hidden somewhat, cloaked in an expertly tailored blue suit that somehow managed to distract the eye from the wearer’s bulk.  His hair and beard were likewise expensively and carefully styled, giving the appearance of a professional man who had more than made it in the world.  Anyone one who saw anything odd in the erect way he stood, or the slightly disdainful expression with which he constantly regarded the world, would simply attribute it to the confidence that came with power and wealth.   

Methos knew better.  More than just the Immortal’s clothing had changed in the last eight centuries.  That stance was the stance of an experienced warrior, one who had once wielded heavy weapons and killed many using them.  The eyes belonged to a man who was used to having the world at his feet, and in a much bloodier, more visceral way than any modern Wall Street tycoon could imagine.  And on his left hand, the hand that was now carrying an absurdly flimsy paper coffee cup, he wore a huge golden ring, several crudely-cut rubies set into a flat Crusader’s cross.  *Ah*, thought Methos.  *The secret tell.  It’s always there, the one part of the identity an Immortal cannot bear to part with.*  Methos took his change from the coffee vendor and turned toward the man, pasting on his brightest, most irritating smile.  “Well, well.  Eduardo Callix, as I live and breathe.  Or would you rather that I call you ‘Apprentice Groom’?”

“Librarian.” 

It was not a friendly greeting.  The word was a curt acknowledgment, nothing more.  Methos merely smiled more brightly still and led the way to an outdoor table, one placed far enough from the rest of the sunny-day coffee drinkers to allow for some privacy of speech.  Even so, he kept his voice direct and low, and his body language purposefully easy.  He wanted any passersby to simply see Dr. Porter having a friendly cup of coffee with a slight acquaintance, nothing more.  “This is a surprise,” he said genially when the larger man had seated himself.  “According to the papers, you lost your head back in 1988.  What happened?”

“I saw an opportunity.  I took it.”

“I see.”  Methos nodded agreeably.  “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time one of us chose to start over by dressing a vanquished Challenger in his clothing, I suppose.  Still.  These days most of us find less…dramatic…ways to assume a new identity when we need one.” Callix said nothing, his face a mask of rock-like rigidity.  Methos decided to prod a little.  “But I still remember being quite shocked when I read the news.  I would have bet cold hard cash that you wouldn’t have lasted so much as a century outside the Sanctuary walls.  Even if you did survive your journey across the sands.”

He was rewarded with a sneer.  “And I would have bet the same on you, Librarian.  After all, one cannot win battles by simply reading about them.  But I see that both our purses would have been made lighter if we had.”  Callix shook his head in disgust.  “Nearly eight centuries gone, and you are still the same effete coward you always were, hiding behind your books.  But with a new name, I see. Porter.  How…appropriate.”  The weathered lip curled.  “I should have known you’d end up naming yourself after a beer.”

Methos raised his cup to his own lips, hiding a smile behind the cardboard.  “Did you come here merely to insult my choice of pseudonyms, Callix?”

“Hardly, Librarian.  Why should I care what you call yourself?  No. I came for this.”  He reached into his pocket and placed a piece of red fabric on the table.

The small scrap of cloth was not the same brilliant red Methos had found on the body of Jean-Marc Bredoux, although it clearly might have been, once upon a time.  This version of the Bloody Favor was far older, faded to a muddy brown, and worn to near transparency along the edges.  There was a heavy layer of tarnish obscuring the silver beads.  Nonetheless, the golden letter K was plain to see.  Methos surveyed it closely, heartbeat accelerating.  But he forced himself to speak casually. “It looks like you have carried that for a very long time, Apprentice Groom.”

The weathered face was impassive.  “Not all that long, Librarian.  Don’t you remember?  My own token was taken from me.  The night you caused me to be cast out.”

“*You* were the one who chose to draw steel within the Sanctuary walls, Apprentice Groom.  No one forced that sword into your hand.”

“True.”  Callix gave a short, sharp nod, his eyes and mouth still expressionless.  “And why was that, Librarian?  Was I really the only one within the entire company who could see the truth of what you were?  It still boggles my mind, you know, that no one else leapt to my aid.  But never mind.  All things Return; nothing is ever truly lost.  And so we find ourselves together once again.” Callix reached out to touch the cloth, running a finger gently over the tarnished beads.  A reverent look came into his eyes.  “No, this is not my token, Librarian.  This one… found its way into my hands much, much more recently.  But it is fitting just the same.  We both will know I carry the mark of Kahvin’s favor when I finish what I started, so many years ago.”

“So you have come for my head?”

For the first time, Callix smiled.  It was not a comforting expression.   “In time,” he said.  “I am in no hurry, Librarian.  I think I’ll stay around campus for a while, waiting for my moment.  After all, I know very well that *you* are never eager for a fight.” He stood and gave Methos a bow, a strangely courtly gesture for such a large body to manage.  A damningly anachronistic one, too.  For the first time, a handful of Linguistic students also enjoying their morning coffee across the square turned to look at them.  Callix noticed them too, and his completely uncomforting smile broadened.  “Teach your final lessons well, Librarian.  We will be seeing each other again very soon.” 

He turned with an unnecessarily dramatic—and stupidly conspicuous--swirl, causing his expertly tailored dress coat to flare out behind him and the watching students to whisper as they watched his tall, striking figure stride away.  Methos took advantage of their drawn eyes to slip away.  He started to reach for his cell phone, then remembered what always happened to its signal when his Quickening was aroused, and decided to use the land line in his office instead.  He had to talk to Joe…

But when Methos reached the Linguistic Science building’s front stairs, he found a very panicked teaching assistant, one who had apparently been searching for him everywhere in order to tell him there was an emergency at home.  Unspeakable fear flashing through his mind, Methos sprinted through the building to his office, where another terrified looking TA—he’d left the first one panting on the second story steps-- shoved the phone into his hand.  There, Methos heard the voice of his husband informing him that Margaretta, their beloved neighbor and the Pixie’s grandmother, had passed away peacefully that morning in her sleep.  And that not only had their brave, nine year old Pixie been the one to discover her body, but the Pixie’s mother had eluded Joe’s best efforts to track her down.  The Pixie herself was now currently sitting on their couch, locked in a near-catatonic state of grief and shock.

“Look, I’m sorry I made you run, Alex,” Jobey said, in a hushed way that told Methos he was sitting with her, probably with her head cuddled firmly against his chest. “I guess I really didn’t need to swear at your TAs, either. Everything really is under control here, and I can do everything that needs to be done.  I just…I could really use a hand. Especially with the Sprout.”

“You have it,” Methos answered.  “Give me fifteen minutes to arrange things with Dr. Morstar and I’ll be on my way.”

“Thanks, Alex.”   Joe’s relief was palpable.  Methos murmured a few more soothing words into the phone and hung up.  Once he had, he sat with his head in his hands for a few moments.  Then he resolutely began writing out a few lesson notes for his replacement. 

***

It was late, very late, before Methos had a chance to speak to Joe alone.  Gabriella, who was out of town on an alleged “business trip” with her boyfriend—a very alleged business trip as far as Methos was concerned, especially since the conference center the pair was supposed to be staying at had heard of neither Gabriella nor Mr. Smith when Joe called-- had proved next to impossible to contact.  She had then found it impossible to return to Las Cruces once they had.  The Pixie had thus become Methos and Joe’s house guest for the night and, what with one thing or another, it was nearly midnight before Methos had a chance to tell Joe about his little coffee klatch with Eduardo Callix.  They were in bed. Joe listened, turned grey, and instantly sat up in order to begin strapping on his legs.  “Where do you think you’re going?” Methos asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Joe answered.  “I’m getting out the suitcases.  I think it’s high time that Dr. Porter and husband went on an extended vacation.  Where do you want to go?  To quote a certain good-looking smart ass I used to know, I hear that Bora Bora is very nice this time of year.”

“No,” Methos said.  And when Joe simply stared at him, he said “No,” again, this time looking pointedly at their bedroom door.  It was closed.  But they both knew that, just a few feet across the hall, lay the door to their guest bedroom, where a broken hearted Pixie had finally cried herself out in Methos’s arms and succumbed to an exhausted sleep. Joe let his prosthetic leg drop out of his hand, shaking his head softly in resignation.  “I’d forgotten just how different a house can feel, when it contains a sleeping child,” he said wistfully.  “Christ, Alex.  We’re stuck, aren’t we?  If Gabriella were here…but she isn’t.  And probably won’t be, not until the weekend.  I suppose in a pinch, we could go anyway and just leave the Sprout with one of the neighbors, but…”  

“If Callix has learned enough about me to know where and when I buy my afternoon coffee, than he already knows who the Pixie is and what she means to me.  Or he will, before too many more hours pass,” Methos said bluntly.  Joe winced, but nodded.  “No, Jobey.  I’d rather keep her here, where we can keep an eye on her and defend her if we need to, than trust her to someone else.  Someone who has no idea just what a ruthless Immortal is capable of.”   

“We could…we could still go.  And just take her with us.”

Methos stared at him incredulously.  “And have someone report us for kidnapping?” he said.  “Think, Jobey.  Half the neighborhood already believes we’re pedophiles just waiting for the right moment to make our move—I caught Mrs. Rodriguez at the mailbox asking Pix if she knew the difference between ‘good touching’ and ‘bad touching’ just last week.  There’d be an Amber Alert issued before we so much as left Las Cruces.  We’d never make it across the state line.  Let alone out of the country.” 

“What do you think we should do, then?”

“Emergency Procedure B,” Methos answered promptly.  “For the next few weeks at least, the doors stay locked and the curtains stay drawn.  Pix plays in the house, never at the park or out in the yard.  We move the lock box with the passports and the spare cash out of the hidden safe in the basement to someplace more accessible, and make sure the gas tanks in both cars are always filled.  And both of us make sure we’re armed 24/7.” 

“You think that will be enough?”

“I think it’s the best we can do.  So it has to be enough.”  Methos let his shoulders slump.  “In some ways, you know, this situation with Margaretta couldn’t have come at a better time.  With her grandmother having just passed away, nobody will think it strange if the Pixie misses a few days of school.  We can keep her close for the rest of this week at least.  Make sure that one or the other of us always has her in his sights.”  Joe still looked troubled.  “Look, we’ll pack her a bag, just in case,” Methos said.  “But for now, I think the best thing to do is stay put.  At least until Callix makes his next move.”

“And when do you think that will be?”

“I don’t know.  But it won’t be long, I think.  He’s not exactly the patient type.”

Methos spent the rest of the week at home with one very upset and frightened little girl more or less surgically attached to his body, either riding his hip or clinging onto his hand as she desperately tried to come to terms with her very first experience of death.  Despite the situation, all the tension and the sadness, in future years Methos would remember that handful of days with a surprising amount of tenderness.  Joe handled all the arrangements necessary with the funeral home and the church, so Methos was free to spend all his time with his Pixie: drawing, reading, playing simple translation games in Latin or Greek.  If the little girl ever noticed that there was now a brand-new Pixie-sized pink suitcase packed full of clothes and books standing in the hall closet next to Methos’s faithful old duffle, or that both her guardians kept their jackets on at all times, she never said.  Methos stopped working out at the warehouse in favor of getting up before dawn to train in the backyard, and whenever he let himself back into the quiet, locked house before breakfast, he realized anew that Joe was right.  There was something incredibly different to the texture of the silence, in a house that contained a beloved, sleeping child…

So went the first day, and the second, and the third.  But on the fourth day, the wait was over.    They were about halfway through dinner when the Presence swept over Methos, clear and unmistakable.  Joe, ever alert to every nuance of Methos’s body language, knew at once.  He put down the ladle he was using to serve a second helping of stew, worried eyes asking Methos a silent question.  When Methos nodded, Joe went to the dining room window and pulled the shade back, revealing the dark, silent form of Roberto Callix standing across the street outside.  “Of all the times,” he said under his breath.  “Alex?  Is it…?”

Methos nodded.   He stared to say “Eduardo Callix, in the flesh,” but remembered just in time that a little pair of ears was listening.  He doubted that his Pixie would have ever heard of the man, but you never knew.  She had an uncanny habit of remembering absolutely every single word one said.  And Callix had been famous enough in the 1980’s that one of the other grownups in Milly’s life might recognize the name and become uncomfortably curious, should she repeat it.  “Kahvin’s latest protégé,” Methos said instead.  “You remember, Jobey; I told you all about that nice chat we had on campus earlier in the week.  Looks like he finally made up his mind to follow me home.”

“But…”

“I know. It’s going to be okay.” He gave Joe his very best reassuring smile, then pushed his bowl of stew toward him across the table. “Better put this back in the oven for me. I’ll be hungry for it later.”

Jobey nodded, biting down on his lip. Milly looked curiously back and forth between them. “Who’s that?” she asked, pointing at the window.

“Just the student of an old acquaintance of mine, Pix,” Methos answered. “His teacher and I had a…professional disagreement, once.  And now the student wants to continue the argument.”

“Are you going to go argue with him?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Methos reached for his sword coat. “I may need to argue with him for quite some time, so don’t worry if I’m not back before you go to bed. I’ll see you at breakfast, for sure.” He planted a quick kiss on Joe’s cheek. “You, too,” he said with gentle emphasis. Then he slipped on his coat, double-checked his weapons in the privacy of the hall, and went out the door.

Callix was waiting, staring into Methos’s home through the still-open-curtains.  In the bright Las Cruces evening, it was easy to see inside.  The Pixie had gotten out her homework, spelling book and practice papers spread out in a fan before her on the table.  Joe had sat down beside her, still picking at the remains of his stew, clearly trying not to look out the window too often or with too much worry.  Methos frowned. Callix’s face, as always, was schooled into an impenetrable mask, but he seemed far too intent on the scene for Methos’s liking.  “Callix,” he said, and when the other Immortal ignored him in favor of still more staring, Methos raised his voice aggressively.  “I take it my domestic arrangements meet with your approval,” he said archly.

“They…meet with my surprise, Librarian.” Callix answered.  “When I first heard some of your students gossiping about ‘el professor homosexual’ and his so-called ‘husband’, I was not surprised, you know.  Of course someone like you would have a catamite, and would be living with him openly, in plain defiance of God’s law.” He frowned at the window.  “But I was not expecting….this.” 

“And what exactly is the ‘this’ you were not expecting, Callix?”

“A family.  A child.”  Callix nodded at the window.  “How long have you been a father, Librarian?  How long since you and your…mate…first took that little one in?”

Methos shifted uneasily.  Yes, Callix was much too interested in Joe and Milly for his comfort.  “I can’t see how that could possibly be any concern of yours,” he said coldly.  “But the little girl you see is the daughter of one of my neighbors.  We are watching her temporarily while her mother is out of town.  She is not my child.  Nor my husband’s.”

Callix made a strange sound low in his throat.  It might have been a laugh.  “And so did Robert Fairsword cease to be my Teacher the first time I entered the Sanctuary gates,” he said.  “But only by name; he never stopped being my Teacher, in my heart.  Laws and custom tend to mean little when it comes to these matters, Librarian.  I suspect that if you asked her, the little one would tell you quite clearly to whom she really belongs.”    He gave Milly another hard, piercing stare.  Then he suddenly whirled around, turning on Methos with so much speed that Methos almost had his sword drawn before he realized the move was not an attack.  “DOES KAHVIN KNOW YOU HAVE A PRE-IMMORTAL CHILD IN YOUR CARE?”

Methos’s mouth dropped open.  He was so astonished that he didn’t know which fallacy to address first.  “The girl is not pre-Immortal, Callix,” he said.  “Believe me.  I would know it, if she were.”

“Yes, yes,” Callix said dismissively.  “She is different, of course. Not like us.  But the potential is there, all the same. It’s in your so-called husband, as well.  Surely, you must hear it as clearly as I…” He waved his hand in the air.  “Oh, I will not bandy words with the likes of you, Librarian!  DOES KAHVIN KNOW?”

“I—“  Helplessly, Methos shook his head.  “There’s no way Kahvin can know anything, Apprentice Groom.  He’s dead.”

“Impossible!”

“It’s true.  Kahvin lost his head more than six centuries ago, to a man known as the Kurgan.  His death was witnessed, Callix.”

“By you?”

“No.  Not personally. But by people I trust.”

“I see.”  For a moment, Callix seemed quite discomfited.  Then he nodded to himself.  “But then, my most recent death was witnessed, too.  By people I trusted.  Or at least, by people I paid enough to do what I said.  And so you will forgive me if I view this information with a certain amount of skepticism.”  His face hardened.  “In fact, Librarian, I may go so far as to say that you are lying.  In a cowardly attempt to keep me from going after your head. ” 

“I’m not lying, Callix.”

“Oh, I think you are.  But it doesn’t really matter.” Callix slid his hand inside his coat, allowing just a hint of evening light to gleam upon the hilt of the sword inside.  “I don’t know what feelings a monster like you is truly capable of,” he said quietly.  “Nor do I know what the rules are for different ones, like the old man and the child.  Perhaps killing them now would trigger their Immortality, or perhaps it would simply put an end to their potential.  But if there is a chance that it matters to you at all—if either of the people in that house mean more to you than mere convenience alone, Librarian-- you should listen to me well.  Should you chose to run instead of fight this night, both the man and the girl will endure more pain than you can imagine, before the dawn.  Have I made myself clear?”

A cold rage, mindless and unreasoning, began to take possession of Methos’s soul.  His fingers itched to reach for his sword.  “Oh, believe me, Callix,” he answered sweetly.  “Running is the last thing on my mind.”

“Good.”  Callix made a little mocking bow.  “Tell me, then.  This is your town, not mine.  Where would you prefer to lose your head?”

“Follow me.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Garry Trudeau quotation in this chapter is from his Doonesbury strip of April 18th, 2006, just one of many moving strips involving wounded US war veteran BD’s decision to seek therapy for his post-war PTSD.  In this strip, BD is explaining to his therapist why he stopped drinking.  You can read it [here](http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2006/04/18).  

Driving Joe’s car wasn’t a simple endeavor, given that it had been especially modified to be driven by a man with no legs.  Still, Methos bypassed his beloved VW minibus in favor of borrowing it, in the hope that the plain black sedan would be much less noticeable cruising through the streets.  Callix followed him in a shining silver Mercedes, one that had left Methos highly dismayed; he knew his neighbors well, and suspected that at least a dozen pairs of eyes must have made startled note of the luxuriant vehicle.  Well, there could be no help for that, now.  But it did cause him, when he reached the warehouse, to open up one of the old shipping doors and drive Joe’s car inside, instead of parking it out on the street.  After the briefest moment of hesitation, Callix drove in after him, parking in the middle of the cavernous floor. 

When Methos finished closing and securing the huge double door—Amanda had advised him to install a set of strong, retractable steel doors behind the warehouse’s antique wooden ones, advice Methos had been glad to follow--he turned to find Callix leaning casually against the Mercedes’s hood.  The man appeared to be more than willing to wait for him, in a manner so similar to Jean Marc Bredoux’s that Methos suffered a disorienting moment of déjà vu.  Then again, there was no way one could ever confuse Callix’s ox-like figure with that of the blonde boy’s.  Or the calculating way that Callix looked around the space, a hint of patronizing approval in his eyes.  “Very nice, Librarian,” he said.  “The extra grounding rods embedded in the cement are an especially good touch.  You own the whole building, I take it?”

“Well, one does need someplace quiet and well insulated to take heads in the city,” Methos answered lightly.  “The police seem to get more inquisitive each and every year.”

“How very true.”  Callix nodded.  “I shall have to remember to buy an old warehouse and set up something similar for myself, when I get back home.  For now, though, I shall simply be grateful that your ingenuity has saved me the problem of figuring out how to dispose of your body.  I imagine it would take quite some doing for an outsider to break in and find you here.”  Abruptly, his sword was in his hand.  “Any final words, Librarian?”

Methos shook his head.  “Never,” he said quietly.  And the battle was joined.

It took some time.  Callix had clearly found time to study more than just international finance since Methos had seen him last.  To an outsider, he might have seemed over-cautious, weaving an unbreakable wall of defense which he only occasionally broke to engage with Methos directly—but he wasn’t.  No, Callix was just so convinced that he was going to be the victor that he was willing to be patient.  It was like fighting a wall made of solid brick.

It took more than twenty minutes before Methos saw the first crack in that wall, the first hint of a suspicion on Callix’s part that he might not win this battle, after all.  It took almost a half an hour more and a dozen near-fatal wounds for that suspicion to become certainty.  But even then, Callix still refused to surrender completely.  Methos, made extraordinarily cautious by his failure to absorb Jean-Marc Bredoux, had kept all of his strange Immortal senses open, and he could feel it: could feel the way Callix’s Quickening simply kept circling, refusing to give in.  Eventually, Methos was forced to realize that it probably never would.  It happened that way sometimes with the really psychopathic ones, the megalomaniacs who truly couldn’t conceive of a world that didn’t revolve around them.  He eyed Callix critically, and raised his sword in blatant invitation.  Callix gave a roar of anguished fury and rushed Methos feverishly, which was the move Methos had been waiting for.  Two quick slashes, and Callix could fight no more.  He collapsed onto the floor, chest heaving, head bowed. 

Methos regarded him thoughtfully for a moment.  He’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this, that he’d simply be able to get the information he needed from Callix’s Quickening.  The alternative was going to be much less pleasant for them both.  But it couldn’t be helped. Methos wiped his sword, sheathed it safely in his coat, and strode over and grabbed the man by the hair.  “All right,” he said agreeably, just as if his hands weren’t covered in blood, as if he wasn’t holding Callix’s head in an iron grip.  “There are a few questions I need answered, if you would be so good.  I suggest you answer them, as quickly and accurately as you can.  You aren’t going to be leaving this place alive in any event.  But your last few moments on earth will be considerably less painful if you do.”

“Go to hell, Librarian.”

“Already been, thanks.  Many, many times.”  Methos gave the man’s head a painful shake.  “Now.  Question one.  What made you think my neighbor’s daughter is Pre-Immortal?”

Callix laughed soundlessly.  “If you don’t already know, it certainly is not my place to tell you,” he said.  “Perhaps I simply could not imagine any other reason why someone like you would have ever adopted a child.  But then again, maybe I just wasn’t thinking…imaginatively…enough.”  He gave Methos a ghastly, bloody-mouthed leer.  “After all, your so-called ‘husband’ surely must be getting far too old to make a satisfactory bedmate.  I bet the child more than provides whatever freshness the old man lacks, eh, Librarian?”

Methos shook his head sorrowfully.  He did something quite extraordinarily painful with his fingernails, pushing hard with his Quickening at the same moment.  Callix screamed a scream that made Methos very glad he’d spent so much time and money on the warehouse’s state of the art sound proofing.  “All right, all right!” Callix shrieked.  “It was the voices.”

“Voices?”

“Yes.” Callix nodded emphatically.  “They sing to her, Librarian, just as strongly as they sing to me and you.  Surely, you must have heard them.”  Methos, frowning, slowly shook his head.  “But you *must* hear them,” Callix protested.  “Or Kahvin would never have allowed you to stay in the Sanctuary for so long.  He *told* me that you heard them, the day I tried to tell him what you were.  Told me that you heard the Song of the Sanctuary with more clarity than anyone else…”

Completely puzzled now, Methos once again shook his head.  “I remember hearing the Song of the Sanctuary,” he said.  “But that was just the sound every Immortal hears, when confronted with another of our kind.  Milly doesn’t make it, Callix.  Neither does Joe.”

“Not *that* song,” Callix said eagerly.  “The *other* song.  The Second Chorus.  Surely…”  He let the words trail off, staring into Methos’s face.  “You have not!  You have no idea what I am even speaking of!”

“I don’t know,” Methos said softly.  “Once or twice, I thought I heard…”  He refocused his attention on the man at his feet.  “Tell me what you mean.”

Callix laughed again, a frightening, brittle sound.  “To speak of such things to an outsider is cause for instant banishment from the Circle,” he said.  “But I have already suffered that. And my falling to you now proves that God truly has abandoned me, has finally judged me so unworthy that I never *will* be able to rejoin it, not even in death.  So I may as well speak.  It’s not as though you will believe me, anyway.”  He cocked his head slightly to one side, staring up at Methos with alarmingly steady eyes.  “The Second Chorus is the song sung by all the Immortals have gone before us, Librarian—the ones that have already rejoined the Great Tide, and wait for us in the world to come.  They sing to us always, eager for us to join them, but few of us can hear them.  For most, it only happens when we are about to lose our heads.  Sometimes, it happens when enough of us gather in one holy place long enough for the veil between the worlds to thin.  Much more rarely, one of us is born who can hear it *all* the time.”  His lips twisted sardonically.  “Such was my gift.  Or my curse.”

Methos looked at him appraisingly.  “You’re insane, Callix.”

“Am I?  Yes.  I suppose that is an option, too.”    Callix let out a shockingly high pitched giggle.  “But I hear the voices still.  And I tell you plainly, they *never* sing to mortals.  But tonight I heard them anyway, calling to your girl.  To the old man, as well.  And so I think that they are special, somehow.  Meant to be a part of the chorus.  Even if they cannot yet sing back themselves.”  He gave Methos a disturbingly canny stare.  “What’s more, I think you know it too, Librarian.  I think you always have.”

Methos tensed.  Thoughts of Joe flickered across his mind, the way that some of Methos’s unbalanced Quickening had gotten bound up into Joe’s mortal body.  Could something similar have happened to the Pixie?  The very idea of the little girl sharing his memory and his dreams the way Joe did was unthinkable. But no.  Milly had never shown the least signs of being anything other than what she was--an extraordinarily bright, but otherwise completely ordinary, mortal girl.  Callix was clearly trying to play him.  “You’re mad, Callix,” Methos said briskly.  “As for this Second Chorus you speak of, I know *exactly* what it is.  It’s one part strong liquor and two parts fairy story, both fed to you by Kahvin for one simple reason: to make you willing to surrender your head.  That’s all your Circle was, Callix.  Just a diabolically clever way for Kahvin to harvest as many Quickenings as he could, without having to go to the trouble of fighting for them.  Nothing more.” 

“You are wrong, Librarian.”

“I’m not.  But here’s the thing that worries me.”  Methos tightened his grip on Callix’s hair, bent low so that his face was intimidatingly close to his.  “Fantastic as this fairy-tale is, far too many people seem to believe in it.  You are the second Favor Bearer to have come my way this year.  And that puzzles me greatly.  Because by all rights, the Bloody Hunts should be at an end.  No matter what you may think of my veracity, Kahvin *is* dead, and the handful of followers he didn’t kill have long since scattered to the winds.  There should be no one left to send the Circle on its merry, bloody rounds.  And yet, here you are.”  He straightened, giving Callix’s head a shake.  “So here is my second question.  Who is behind this latest Bloody Hunt?”

“I don’t know.”

 “Wrong answer.”  Methos did something more painful still as he pushed even harder with his Quickening. 

Callix’s scream was long and agonized, ringing in Methos’s ears long after it stopped.  It took quite some time for the wordless screaming to resolve into a babble of words.  “I don’t know, I don’t know, I really don’t know!” Callix shouted.  “You know as well as I do that Kahvin cast me out centuries ago, Librarian!  I didn’t even know he was dead until you told me so!”

“Then how did you come to carry the Circle Crest?”

“I fought a Challenge!  I won.  When I recovered from the Quickening, my opponent held the token clutched within his fingers.” 

“That’s it?  No one gave it to you?  You just took it off a Challenger’s dead body?”

“How else?”  Even through his pain and terror, Callix managed to glare at Methos.  “I have been CAST OUT, Librarian.  You still have no idea what that really means, do you?  How unforgiveable was my sin, how total my isolation?  I am dead to the Circle now.  And, it appears, completely forgotten, too.  None of the Chosen would have made the mistake of Challenging me at all, if my name was still remembered.”  Callix swallowed.  “I didn’t see him reach for the token before I swung.  If I had, I would have stayed my hand.   Begged to be taken back to Kahvin, begged to be able to eat once more at his table and kneel at his feet.” His eyes went wet.   “I would have even let my Challenger take my head, if I could Return no other way…”

The longing was a palpable force, rising through their circling Quickenings like a bird flying upward through a storm cloud.  God.  Had Kahvin somehow dominated the young Apprentice Groom’s Quickening, the way Methos’s had once been dominated by MacLeod?  Had he dominated them all, Bright Sky and Robert and everyone else who’d ever taken Sanctuary vows?  Was that why they’d all fought…and died…for him so willingly?  Was that why Callix’s Quickening refused to surrender to Methos now?  There was no point in asking Callix.  Whatever had been done to him, in his ignorance he’d attributed it to the Will of God, and there would never be any arguing him from that belief.  Methos looked down, seeing for the first time an undeniably glint of madness rising to the forefront of the Apprentice Groom’s eyes.  Almost, he felt a stir of pity. 

But…this man had threatened Joe and Milly.  And in doing so, he had forfeited any right to pity.  “This Immortal you killed, the one with the token.  Who was he?”

“He was a stranger to me.”

“And when did you take his head?”

“Almost five years ago.”

Methos suppressed a whistle.  So this Bloody Hunt had been going on at least since 2003, long before he and Joe had even thought about moving to Las Cruces.  Why had none of the Watchers suspected?  Why had nobody *seen*?  But that, of course, was another question it would be pointless to ask Callix.  Methos narrowed his eyes.  “Last question,” he said.  “And this one is the most important, so I advise you not to try to lie.  How did you find me?”

Callix spoke sullenly.  “Ten years ago, I took a wife.  A mortal woman.”

“Yes?  And?”

“She had children.  Two daughters.” Callix’s face went grim.  “One is now a junior at your university.  Busy.  Successful.  But she still finds time to e-mail her little sister every day.  Often the two girls write in French, because the younger sister is learning it in high school, and when they do the elder likes to giggle about how handsome her favorite professor is.  Once, she sent a picture.”  Callix jerked his chin roughly in the direction of his coat pocket.

Methos hesitated.  But after a moment’s consideration, he loosened his grip on the man’s hair long enough to slide one hand inside the coat.  It came out with a cheap ink jet print out of a photo he knew well—himself, shirtless, standing guard over a wounded Maria Navarro.  The photo looked quite faded.  “This was supposed to have been destroyed.”

“It was.  The file was mysteriously corrupted.  On both the girls’ computers.  But not before the youngest had printed it out to put up in her high school locker,” Callix answered.  “I saw it there for the first time just last week, when I had to take my wife’s place at some idiotic parent-teacher function.  The girl told me that she’d had the photo in her locker for most of her sophomore year, then put it up again this fall. She said it was her incentive to keep studying and get into a good college, like her sister.”  The light left Callix’s eyes, leaving his expression curiously dead.  “And now I will never know if she goes to any college, at all.”

Methos felt his soul go hard.  “*You* chose to Challenge *me*, Apprentice Groom.  And to threaten my family to make sure I fought.”

“Yes.  Yes.”  The words came in a torrent.  “How could I not? How could I possibly let you slip away?  It seemed like a message direct from Heaven, Librarian.  That photo—the hunt—ah, my way seemed so clear.  Take your head, then Challenge every Immortal I met until I found one who also bore the token, and could beg him to lead me back home.  Kahvin loved you well, Librarian. I knew that he could refuse me nothing, if I but carried your essence, too…” 

The yearning rose up again, like a whirlpool circling, that uneasy tang of madness at its core.  Methos set his heart and his sword against it, and gradually, it ebbed.  “But now you tell me that my Father is dead,” Callix said dully.  “And so I discover that the photo was not a gift after all, but a test.  One that I have failed.”  He angled his head forward, eyes cast down.  “Cut clean, Librarian.  You may take my head without fear.  It was chance alone that led me to you, and I told no one else where I was going, not even my wife.  No other Immortal can follow the same trail.” 

“No?”

“No.”  Callix’s expression went ugly.  “You may continue to live your timid little mortal life with your *husband* and your *neighbor’s child* unmolested.  Coward.  Pervert.”

He spat the last words with great disgust, and Methos felt the last vestige of whatever sympathy he might have felt for the man slip away.  He yanked Callix’s head back.  And did indeed cut clean.

***

As Methos had once told Joe, there were reasons why Immortals never adopted children.  Keeping them safe from Immortal crazies like Callix was definitely one of those reasons.  Keeping them ignorant of a truth that could change the world and ruin countless lives if ever spoken aloud by careless, childish lips was certainly another. 

But the awkwardness of going home after a Challenge, to a house that contained a nine-year-old child, was certainly a good reason, too.  Methos let himself in through the back door, and said nothing to neither Joe nor Milly before he locked himself into the bathroom to take a long, long shower.   When he was certain that every possible trace of blood was gone from his skin and had tossed both clothes and shoes into the washer with a quadruple dose of bleach—they would be in tripled Hefty Bags destined for the city dump by morning, but one couldn’t be too cautious—he finally let himself reappear. 

Part of him had been dreading the moment when Milly first caught sight of him, shouted “Alex!” and ran to him for the inevitable hug.  Taking Callix’s head had filled him with a strangely dirty feeling, a grittiness of soul he couldn’t quite reconcile with the innocent welcome of a pink-cotton-nightgown-wearing little girl.  Going directly from disposing of a freshly beheaded corpse to reading a chapter of “Glinda of Oz” before bed seemed like just too big an emotional step for any man to make.

But little girls, as the great Garry Trudeau had once observed, possess a powerful medicine.  One look at his Pixie’s happy face and the brutality of the last few hours was swept away.  Suddenly, all Methos felt was love, both for the little girl herself, and the world of bright gentleness she so effortlessly brought.  He also felt a weary—but quite profound--pride that he’d been able to preserve that world for her.  At least for one more day. 

It was harder for Joe.  Filled with a thousand questions Methos couldn’t answer in front of Milly and a thousand fears Methos couldn’t assuage, Joe spent the pre-bed hour jittering like a wasp caught under a glass.  But even he eventually seemed to calm.  He sat down on one of the living room chairs while Methos read.  There came a moment, when the Pixie had finally let her tired head fall onto Methos’s chest, that Joe seemed to relax, too.  He let out a breath that seemed to contain the weight of the world, and the look in his eyes when he met Methos’s reflected the same tired pride.  When they finally had their little visitor tucked into bed and Methos had pulled their own bedroom door firmly shut, Joe was almost his normal self.  “Tell me,” was all he said.

Methos drew Callix’s Bloody Favor from the pocket of his jeans and tossed it onto Joe’s bedside table.  “Not much to tell,” he said.  “Callix was mad as a hatter, Jobey.  Completely bonkers.  Utterly insane.  He always was a few apples short of a barrel, and the years have not been kind.  He thought Milly was Pre-Immortal, if you can believe that.”

“He *what*?”

“Yes.  Something about a second chorus of voices only he could hear singing to her from heaven, one that doesn’t sing to ordinary mortals.  Oh.  Apparently they sing to you, too, just in case you were wondering.  It didn’t stop him from threatening to kill both of you anyway if I didn’t fight him, of course.  I told you.  He was crazy as a loon.”

Joe’s mouth worked helplessly for a moment, as he tried to come up with something to say.  Finally, he managed: “And the Favor?  The Hunts?”

“Callix knew nothing.  Hadn’t been in contact with any of Khavin’s other followers since he was made to walk the sands.  The only reason he was carrying one of Kahvin’s tokens at all is that he found it on the body of a vanquished Challenger.”  Methos nodded at the bloody scrap.  “Five years ago, he said.”

“Five *years*?” Joe repeated, stunned.  “Shit, Methos!  If the current group is still following Kahvin’s original ten-year plan, that means this Hunt is already halfway over.  Why haven’t we seen any hint of it in the Chronicles?  The statisticians should have noticed an increase in the number of Challenges at the very least…”

“I don’t know, Joe.  The only thing I can think of is that the Favor Bearers aren’t nearly so numerous, this time around.  And maybe at least a few of them are true power players, like MacLeod—Immortals already so active in the Game that they could win a new Challenge every week without raising an eyebrow.  We’ll have to start researching them tomorrow.”  Methos sat down heavily on the bed.  “But for now, all I can really tell you is that Callix didn’t have any answers.  He didn’t even know Kahvin was dead.”

“Then—“ Joe plopped down next to him, more falling than sitting.  “Then how did he find *you*?” 

For answer, Methos dug in his other pocket, and pulled out the poorly printed photo.  Joe stared.  “How the hell…”

“Coincidence, Joe.  Nothing but coincidence.  Callix had a mortal wife…a woman with two daughters, one of whom happens to be one of my students at UNM.  She e-mailed the photo to her younger sister, who printed it out before Amanda’s “doctor” virus could destroy it.  That’s it, that’s the whole story.  No great conspiracy.  Just an instance of horrible, terrible, almost unbelievably bad luck.”  Methos shook his head.  “It’s so unbelievable that if I hadn’t been there, I’d have said Callix was lying…but I was, and he wasn’t.  I…I made sure.”  Joe went even paler, but he nodded, and even went so far as to pat Methos comfortingly on the arm.  Methos slumped forward and buried his face in his hands.  “Nothing, Joe.  Callix didn’t surrender completely, so at least I don’t have to cope with his memories.  Nonetheless, I fought the Challenge, took on that man’s messed up soul into my own for all eternity, and it was all for nothing.  Callix knew nothing worth the telling.  We’re still as much in the dark as we ever were.”

Joe swallowed.  “Do you think….did he show the photo to anyone else?”

“Callix said he didn’t.  Said he didn’t even tell anyone where he was going when he came here, and that he’d left nothing behind anyone could use to trace me.  I believe him, I think.  By that point, he no longer had any reason to lie.”  Joe nodded, looking ever so slightly sick.  Methos turned to him anxiously.  “But we’re still going to have to be very careful now, Joe.  Very, very careful indeed.  I really do think it was just misfortune, nothing more, that allowed Callix to stumble over a copy of this picture.  But if it happens again…”

Joe nodded, face somber.  He slid his hands up to the back of Methos’s head, pulled him in for a kiss.  When he finished, both men were shaking with suppressed need.   “Joe,” Methos said thickly.  “I know this is the worst possible time, given that we have a nine-year-old little girl sleeping down the hall.  But do you think you could somehow manage to fuck me, if we lock the door and we’re both really careful to be quiet?  I want… I mean, I need…”

Joe caressed his face.  “We’ll figure out something.”

They made desperate, silent love for the rest of the night.


	13. Chapter 13

~ _Las Cruces, New Mexico, September 2009~  
~One Year Later~_

The third time Methos felt a strange Immortal presence in New Mexico, he was driving home from the grocery store.

Joe loved ice cream.  Next to good Scotch—and cigarettes, which Joe never, ever indulged in, but still occasionally craved, even three decades after he’d given them up—ice cream was by far Joe’s most serious vice.  It was also, thanks to his inexplicably rising cholesterol, one of the many things Joe’s doctor had absolutely forbidden him to have.  Except on special occasions. 

But the next day was the most special occasion possible, at least from Methos’s point of view.  It was Joe’s birthday, celebrating fifty-nine years of life on the planet.  To Methos, those fifty-nine years were an epoch unto themselves, Joe’s presence making it the only time in over five millennia that the planet had ever come close to the golden age of prosperity and peace almost every religion promised. Methos meant to celebrate in a suitable fashion. 

And so his grocery bags were weighted down with not one, not two, but fourteen pints of ice cream: every flavor Methos knew Joe especially liked, plus a few tantalizing new concoctions neither of them had tried.  Amanda, who had come along for the ride—she and Nick were actually on their way to a security conference in Taos, but had shaken off their Watcher back at the airport so they could drive down for a few hours and let Amanda “kiss the birthday boy”—leaned around the passenger’s seat so she could rifle through the bags when Methos put them in the back of the VW.  She counted the contents twice.  “Fourteen?” she said incredulously. 

“Is that how many I got?  I must admit, I didn’t count.”

“Obviously.”  Sniffing disdainfully, Amanda settled back into her seat, a disapproving expression on her face.  “There’s no way you and Jobey are ever going to be able to eat all that, Alex.”

“Who said it was all for us?”  Methos dug into the bag and tossed her a pint of Double Trouble Fudge, complete with plastic spoon. Amanda cooed loudly and instantly set about digging in, taking off the lid and peeling back the inner wrapper before she fastened up her seatbelt.  “But no, there actually is a method to my madness,” Methos continued as he fastened his own belt and started up the engine.  “Jobey once told me how, when he was a kid, he’d always wanted to go to the ice cream store and eat just one spoonful of each flavor.  I figured this was the closest I could get to making that fantasy come true.  Well, short of arranging a midnight break-in at the nearest Baskin Robbins, that is.” 

Amanda turned in her seat at once, all eager excitement.  “Oh, but I could easily…”

Methos cut her off.   “Sorry, little minx,” he said.  “That was *not* an invitation for you to give us all a demonstration of your ‘special skills’.  I’m not saying that it wouldn’t be fun, and I’m sure that it would make for the most memorable birthday Jobey has ever had.  But I’m afraid that my dear, ethical, straight arrow husband wouldn’t go for it.  Neither would your adoring man.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Amanda agreed reluctantly.  She stared out the window meditatively as Methos backed up the VW bus and carefully steered it out of the parking lot.  “Did you ever wonder how the two of us ever managed to end up with such boy scouts, anyway?  Somewhere, there’s an ancient love goddess absolutely laughing her underpants off at the trick she played us.  If she even wears underpants, that is.”

Methos snickered.  “Speak for yourself, wench,” he said.  “No goddess had anything to do my landing Jobey.  It was all my own doing, the end result of years of incredible skill, patience, and manipulative cunning.  The ice cream is merely the latest portion of my fiendishly clever plan.” 

“And a very fine fiendish plan it is, darling.  I have just one question.” Amanda cast an appraising glance back at the bulging grocery bags.  “Are you going to have room in the freezer for all of those?”

“Amanda.  I’m Immortal. I’m more than five thousand years old. I’m capable of hiding a full size sword inside of a light suede jacket.  Do you really think a few pints of ice cream are going to give me any trouble?”  She simply raised her eyebrows at him, eyes sparkling.  Methos sagged.  “Oh, all right,” he said.  “If worst comes to worst and there really is more than we can handle, we’ll simply drop off a few pints next door for the Pixie to eat when she gets home from Bible camp.  That girl is an ice-cream eating machine.  If we give her enough, it might even make up for missing your visit.”   He suddenly smiled.  “Although, now that I happen to think about it, I’ll have to come up with something else to console her.  I don’t think we’ll need to borrow the Alphonso freezer space after all.  There are many erotic uses for ice cream, and not all of them involve risking Jobey’s cholesterol.  I think there’s still one or two I haven’t gotten around to showing him yet.  Maybe…”

Amanda threw up her hands with a theatrical shudder.  “I don’t want to know!”

He grinned at her.  “Oh yes.  You do.”

Amanda blushed wildly.  She was still busy trying to come up with a suitable retort when they felt the Presence.

It came from the vehicle behind them, pulling up with incredible speed.  The store Methos had bought the ice cream from was a small mom-and-pop affair, the kind that only existed because a larger chain had yet to find the neighborhood worth colonizing.  Methos shopped there mainly because it had recently been purchased by the family of one of his students, and Bisabuela Navarro always had a kind word and a free tamale for his Pixie. It could not be said, however, that the shop was located anywhere near the more upwardly-mobile parts of town, and Methos had been navigating through a warren of alleyways and dingy freeway underpasses when the unmistakable feeling hit.  He looked in the rear view mirror, where a huge, brand new Ford truck was rapidly approaching. What rental car had Nick and Amanda driven from the airport?  Methos couldn’t recall, but somehow he doubted that the big black pickup-on-steroids was either Nick or Amanda’s style.  “I don’t suppose there’s any chance that’s Nick,” Methos said hopelessly.

“No,” Amanda answered tensely. 

Methos would have had his answer in a few moments anyway. Former Police Officer Nick would never have broken the Las Cruces speed limit.  And he most certainly would never have tried to force them off the road by crashing into their rear bumper.  Methos swore, sped up, and forced his old friend the minibus around a sharp, squealing turn.  “Friend of yours?” Amanda inquired tensely as she rocked sideways in her seat.

“No,” Methos answered, just as tensely.   “I don’t *have* Immortal friends, Amanda, apart from Duncan and you.   Somehow, I don’t think this one has friendship on his mind.”    The Ford picked up speed and crashed into them again, forcing them forward against their belts.  “Amanda.  This is a vintage 1960’s minibus, not a Humvee.  I’m going to have to find a place to pull over, and soon.  Or Mr. Persuasive back there will force us from the road.”  He took an agonized look back over his shoulder.  “And given that old Bessie here was built long before the advent of either airbags or anti-lock brakes, I’m not sure what kind of condition we’ll be in when we stop.”

Amanda nodded.  She already had her coat open. The pommel of her sword was curled securely within her hand, though the blade was still sheathed within the coat’s lining.  “As Rebecca used to say, it’s always better to choose your own ground,” she agreed, and gave him a dazzling smile.  “Tell me, Alex.  Where’s the best place to fight a Challenge in this part of Las Cruces?  For some reason, I neglected to check Zagat’s Beheading Guide before I left home.  Silly of me.”

He choked back a hysterical laugh.  “There’s an old railroad depot coming up,” he said.  “It used to be used to transport produce in and out of the city.  Now, though, it’s mostly a place for the local gangs to practice their graffiti.  If we can just make it another two miles…shit!” Another ‘love tap’ from their friend jarred through the bus, causing it to swerve and almost skid.  Methos swore some more, but recovered.  “I hate fighting Challenges near railways,” he said conversationally, as he urged Bessie to go just a few more miles-per-hour faster.  “It’s much too easy to catch a foot and trip on the tracks.  But the depot is the only open, abandoned place I can think of nearby.”

“It will do,” Amanda said.  She cast a side long glance at Methos.  “Alex…whoever he is, I want to fight him.  I want you to stay in the bus.”

He blinked in astonishment.  “Why, Amanda.  Getting Quickening-hungry in your old age?”

“No,” she said soberly.   “But what if some of those gang members are hanging around?  Or what if Ms. or Mr. Persuasive back there has a Watcher?  This is your town, Alex, your life.  *You cannot be seen.*” He stared at her.  She gave him a sad little half smile.  “Besides.  This is Jobey’s day, and I love him.  I can’t have his husband risking his head on his birthday.  Call it…” She shrugged.  “Call it a present.”

Methos’s mouth dropped open.  But the entrance to the old depot was coming up fast.  He floored the gas pedal and used both hands to swing the wheel, just as the truck surged forward and smashed into Bessie for a final time. 

The minibus spun out of control.

It might have been okay, if there had been enough flat, paved space for it to spin in.  But Methos had reckoned without the large ditch, dug to channel the occasional flooding desert rain, that lay to both sides of the entrance.  He also hadn’t expected the pavement to so abruptly change into gravel.  Bessie twisted, slid, and ended by rolling heavily into the ditch, landing with a thud on Amanda’s side.  Methos heard Amanda’s startled shriek as her door crumpled inward and her head crashed through the passenger window, knocking her senseless.  Methos wanted desperately to help her, but there was no time.  He could hear the Ford rumbling to a stop nearby, and knew his adversary was approaching fast.  “Sorry, princess,” he murmured.  “It looks like the Fates have once again stepped in.  No self-sacrificing gestures for you today.” And set about breaking the driver’s side window with the pommel of his sword, so he could fight his way free of the car.

His feet hit the ground outside just in time. 

It was a short battle, as vicious and heated as any Methos had ever fought.  The other Immortal bore down on him with a mindless fury, once or twice actually snarling at him in a completely feral fashion, much like a rabid dog.  This Challenger wasn’t anywhere near as skilled as either Callix or the blond boy had been.  But he was hardly a novice either, and clearly relied on his greater height and muscular strength to quickly overpower Methos and force him to his knees.  It didn’t work—Methos had known it wouldn’t, from the very first moment.  But he still found himself hard pressed, reaching for every ounce of strength he possessed in order to keep his head.  When his opening came, he didn’t think twice.  He just swung his sword up and around, and screamed in both agony and triumph as the Quickening took him.

A completely indefinable stretch of time later, Methos opened his eyes to find that he was lying face down in the gravel.  Amanda, one side of her face still quite bloody from its collision with Bessie’s window, was standing about fifteen feet away, holding a cell phone to her ear.  When she saw that Methos was conscious, she abruptly ended the conversation and reached into her coat.  Instinctively, all of Methos’s muscles tensed.  The Game *was* the Game, after all.  And there was no better time to take someone’s head than when he was already weak from absorbing another Immortal’s Quickening.  But Amanda just put the phone into an inner pocket, re-buttoned her coat, and approached Methos cautiously, looking awed.  “Jesus, Methos,” she said.  “Remind me never to piss you off.”

Ah.  Drat. He supposed it was too much to hope for that she’d stayed unconscious for the entire fight.  “Let me guess,” he said, wincing slightly as he pushed his exhausted body up off the gravel onto his knees.  “You’re never going to buy the ‘sweet, harmless, innocent Professor Porter’ act again.”  Amanda shook her head, lips pursed.  Methos stifled a groan.  “How much did you see?”

“Enough to give up my life of crime and go back to studying the sword full time,” Amanda answered, only half-joking. “But not with you—no way in hell am I ever going to cross swords with *you* again.  Not even just to train.  By all that’s holy, Methos.  What the hell did you do to that guy, to make him go after you like that?  Seduce his wife?  Steal his dog?”

“I never—“

“Yeah, yeah,” she said dismissively.  “Never saw him before in your life.  Why did I have a feeling you were going to say that?”  She bit down on her lip for a second, oddly hesitant.  “I don’t suppose…”

“No, Amanda.  Not a thing.  There just wasn’t time.”

She nodded.  Methos, who knew exactly what she’d been asking—if he’d been able to dominate the Challenger’s entire Quickening, and had gotten any useful memories as a result—also knew that Amanda wouldn’t press him any further.  How much of another Immortal’s being had been lost or won during any particular Challenge was something Immortals never, ever discussed…and for good reason.  Whatever had happened, it was too painful too talk about.  If the loser had truly surrendered everything, and the victor was trying to integrate the loser’s entire lifetime of experience into his own—a process that got slightly easier with practice, but which was always painful, and never left the victorious Immortal completely unchanged. If not, something unique and precious had been lost for good.  And who wanted to truly contemplate that, lest the same fate one day befall you?  Really, it was no wonder that they all went around pretending that such memory transfers simply didn’t exist, the same way that most modern mortal grownups pretended that sex didn’t exist around small children.  Talking about it was one of their few taboos.  Methos was a bit surprised Amanda had brought it up at all.

For her part, Amanda seemed quite relieved to drop the awkward topic.  She took a pair of dark leather gloves out of her pockets and put them on, carefully smoothing the skin-tight leather onto each and every finger.  Once that was accomplished, she stalked over to pick up the Challenger’s severed head by the hair, looking thoughtfully down into his face.  “Ugly brute,” she said.  “But I’m pretty sure that I’ve never seen him before, either—his isn’t the kind of face one can easily forget.  I guess we’re just going to have to wait for Joe to get here and do whatever magic it is you two usually do with the Watcher Chronicles to know who he is for sure.  Both Joe and Nick should be here any minute, by the way.  I gave them directions on the phone.”

Watchers.  Crap.  Watchers.  With difficulty, Methos talked his exhausted legs into remembering how to stand, and maneuvered his way to a long-abandoned stack of railway ties.  He sank down onto the oily wood gratefully.  “Amanda.  Were we Watched?”

“I don’t think so,” Amanda answered, seriously.  “I kept an eye out, and I didn’t see any suspicious looking cars drive by.  There might be someone in the hills over there with a pair of binoculars.  But those binoculars would have to be pretty high powered, military grade or better, for anyone to have gotten a clear view.  Unless the Watchers have seriously upgraded their equipment since the last time I caught dear Jason peering in my windows, I’d say your secret is safe.”  Methos nodded heavily.  Amanda favored him with a brilliant smile.  “Mind if I go through this late, unlamented gentleman’s pockets?   His sword isn’t up to much, but he might have a nice handgun or a throwing knife hidden somewhere on his body.  Some of my best backup weapons came from newly-headless men…you know the type.”  Her smile turned ever-so-slightly feral.  “The kind who were stupid enough to think a woman had to be an easy Challenge.”

“By all means, Amanda.  Be my guest,” Methos answered.  “Feel free to keep any cash or other valuables you find, too.  Just let me know if you come across any ID.” 

Amanda nodded and pranced away, the unfortunate Immortal’s head still dangling from her hand.  She looked as gleeful as a little girl about to shop in a particularly macabre candy store.  By the time Amanda had made a thorough search of the fallen Challenger’s pockets and pronounced them to be astoundingly empty—“Not so much as a wad of pocket fluff.  What did he do, buy a brand new wardrobe just to Challenge you in?”—and was searching the abandoned pickup truck instead, Joe and Nick were driving through the gate. 

Joe had his seatbelt undone and the passenger’s side door open even before Nick had pulled the rental car to a complete stop.  Once Nick had, Joe was out the door, limping across the crumbly gravel to Methos, saying “Are you all right?  Are you *really* all right?” over and over again. Methos was already beginning to feeling much more like himself.  But he still accepted Joe’s worried kiss and unnecessary field examination with alacrity, and even let Nick put a solicitous arm around his shoulders to assist him to the Immortal duo’s rental car.  Amanda caught his eye and snorted a little when she saw the way Methos was letting Nick support his weight.  But Methos merely flashed her a private smile, and Amanda rolled her eyes and went back to her search, leaving Methos both relieved and pleased.  Yes, it did indeed seem that his secrets were safe with Amanda, after all. 

Boy Scouts did have their uses.  Nick had come prepared with several extra-large, extra-thick plastic tarps and a 12-pack of duct tape, and used them to do a very creditable job of wrapping the body for disposal.  He even had a small folding shovel for removing the earth contaminated with blood spray, a matching rake for smoothing the gravel over it afterward, and a spray bottle of special (and probably quite illegal) cleaner for melting away fingerprints and destroying minute traces of DNA.  This last worked so well that it made Methos’s old method of simply wiping hard surfaces with a clean rag look possibly archaic.  In short, Nick managed to make the train depot look as if no crime had ever happened there in little more than thirty minutes…such an extraordinary feat of efficiency that Methos had to wonder if Nick’s time in the police had been far darker than they’d ever suspected.  Someday, he’d have to ask...

Disposing of the Challenger’s truck turned out to be easy. Nick said he’d use it to transport the body to the local garbage dump, clean it, and then just abandon it on the highway, a task made simple by the fact that the truck’s keys were still in it and the engine still running.  The one thing that eluded them all was what to do about the poor, fallen, still-resting-on-her-side-in-the-ditch Bessie.  “I think I’ll just have to call the police and report her stolen,” Methos said.  “I don’t like the idea of leaving her here for the local gangs to find, but I don’t see any other option.  There’s no way we can right her without a crane, and I just can’t come up with any plausible explanation for why Dr. Porter would have crashed here.  But if I report her stolen, we can blame it on adolescent joy riding.  Nick’s done such a good job clearing the scene that even if the police do eventually find her here, they won’t think to suspect anything else happened.  Well, provided we use Nick’s magic cleaner to destroy Amanda’s blood and fingerprints inside Bessie first.  It wouldn’t do for The Raven to be traced to Las Cruces.”  Methos looked at Joe sadly.  “I’m sorry, Jobey.”

Joe looked astonished.  “What for?  I admit, I’m just as fond of Bessie as you are, but…”

“Not for Bessie,” Methos interrupted.  “For ruining your birthday.  I’m afraid that by now, the vanilla-mocha-chip has been melted completely beyond repair.”  He frowned.  “Do you know, the first time I fought a Challenge in this city, I believe we had ice cream casualties too?  Maybe someone is trying to tell us something.”

“Idiot,” Joe growled. 

He pounced on him, sweeping Methos into a kiss that left Methos in no doubt that he was in for a very satisfying evening, even without the fourteen pints of frozen desert.  But they were interrupted by Amanda’s pointed throat clearing.  “Sorry to intrude, gents,” she said when they parted. “But I thought you might like to know what I found in Mr. Ugly’s truck.  Not much, that is…there wasn’t any kind of registration or ID.  The glove compartment didn’t even have an owner’s manual.  But I did find this, safely tucked behind the sun visor on the driver’s side.”  She held out a scrap of cloth.

It wasn’t red.  This little square of velvet was colored a clean, brilliant white, startlingly pale against the black leather of Amanda’s glove.  But the sideways letter K was still easy to see, embroidered carefully in golden thread.  So was the shining circle of silver beads. 


	14. Chapter 14

It was possibly the quickest way to ruin a birthday celebration on record.

Amanda asked surprisingly little.  She knew, in a vague sort of way at least, what the Bloody Favor signified—it was one of the many bits of Immortal lore Rebecca had passed on during her lifetime.  Amanda knew nothing of Kahvin or the Sanctuary, but she did know that every few hundred years, Immortals bearing that design began energetically taking heads.  The fact that this particular token was white instead of red didn’t seem to bother her.  “Maybe it means he was a virgin,” she suggested brightly.  “Or maybe it works like a merit badge—he doesn’t get a red one until he’s taken half a dozen heads.  Who knows?  Short of figuring out a way to speak to the dead, there’s no way to ask him—and I never did get the hang of working my Ouija board.  Besides, who really cares?  I’ll be sure to call Duncan and warn him that another Bloody Hunt might be starting, but apart from that, I don’t really see a need to make a fuss.  So there’s a bunch of strange Immortals running around out there, willing to stop at nothing to take my head.  Well, duh.  That’s just everyday life, for me.  For us all.”

Nick seemed a little more thoughtful, but it was hard to argue with this summing up, and after a quick change of clothes and a hurried goodbye he and Amanda went on to their conference as planned.  Joe was a different story.   He’d been silent ever since he’d first laid eyes on that tiny scrap of white cloth. The moment they were alone in the house he turned and, still silent, stalked into Methos’s office.  Methos, who knew exactly where Joe was going—to grab the special laptop and hack into the Chronicles—didn’t try to stop him.  He simply got out his sword, giving the faithful blade a more thorough cleaning and sharpening than he’d time to before.  Then he quietly and calmly joined Joe in his office. 

Joe was frowning thunderously at the laptop screen.  “Anything?” Methos asked.

Joe shook his head.  “Not a damned thing,” he said. 

“Nothing at all?”

“No,” Joe answered sourly.  “Amanda and Nick’s Watcher Jason spent the day at the airport, desperately ducking in and out of bars and duty-free shops trying to figure out where his assignments had gone.  Apart from that, it’s just like last time.   No other Watched Immortal has been anywhere near Las Cruces in more than a year.”  Joe slammed the laptop shut.  “God damn worthless organization.  What’s going on with the Watchers these days, Methos?  Have field agents just started letting their assignments run around un-Watched for the hell of it?”

“The Watchers don’t know about every Immortal on the planet, Jobey.”

“Yeah, well, I’m beginning to think there’s more holes in the Chronicles then even I ever would have guessed,” Joe said caustically.  “Three Immortals that just happen to have no agents happen to come to Las Cruces, hunting you?  All three of them bearing the Bloody Favor, even if this last one was a bit on the anemic side? That can’t be a coincidence.”  Joe chewed nervously on his lip.  “Especially given the conversation I had with Nick while you and Amanda were shopping.”

Methos frowned.  “With Nick?”

“Yeah.”  Joe nodded tersely.  “He didn’t want to frighten Amanda, you see.  Not until he’d talked to someone who knew a little more about Immortality than he’s had a chance to learn so far.  So he had a little word in private with me, and frightened me instead.  And Methos…I’m not just scared anymore.  I am scared fucking shitless.  And I honestly don’t know what to do.”

Methos sank down onto the couch.  “Tell me.”

“Nick was mugged a few weeks ago.  In Toronto.”  Methos gave Joe a gentle little “Oh? Yes?” face.  Joe fidgeted in his chair.  “I know, I know.  Not a big deal, for one of you.  It was night, and Nick was on foot, taking a short cut back to the office.  This gang of teenagers cornered him in the alleyway.  Nick said he was torn between being amused and wanting to give the kids a stern talking to, like a good police officer should.  But they held a gun on him. And he figured it was better not to risk getting shot and healing so close to people who knew him, so he played along…”

“Smart.”

“Yeah.  That’s what Nick thought, too.  He let the kids pat him down, told them they were welcome to take anything they wanted, didn’t make any threatening moves.  He even told them exactly which pocket his wallet and his phone were in.  So…”  Joe swallowed.  “So one of them, the leader, reaches into Nick’s coat.  And Nick says he still doesn’t know how the hell it happened, but the next thing he knew, the kid had taken his *sword*.  Completely ignored his wallet.  Ignored his phone and the handgun in his shoulder holster, too.   Just reached in, went straight to the hidden pocket, and pulled out the blade.  And then the leader nods at the two who were holding Nick.  And they kicked him in the back of both his knees.  Dropped him to the ground, forced him to kneel.”

Methos stared at Joe, eyes wide.  Joe nodded at him.  “Yeah,” he said.  “The next thing Nick knew, the leader has his sword raised up high…*exactly* the way someone does when he’s about to cut off someone else’s head.  And then one of the other kids’ phone rang.  The first kid froze with the sword in the air; the second kid listened, said “Yeah, I understand,” and flipped the phone closed.  Then he said something like “Abort.  She’s too near.”  So the first kid nods.  And then the two who were holding Nick slipped a belt or something similar around Nick’s neck, choking him until he blacked out.”

“Jesus, Jobey.”

“Yeah.”   Joe nodded soberly.  “So. When Nick came to, he was alone, without so much as a bruise for a souvenir.  The kids even put his sword back in his coat for him.  And Nick didn’t know what the hell to think.  He thought that maybe it really was just an ordinary street gang.  Maybe the leader found Nick’s sword by accident and raised it up like that just to feel like a big man, a superhero out of a comic book.”  Joe looked worried.  “But if it wasn’t…”

“Then they were a gang of mortals who knew that Nick was Immortal, and knew exactly how to kill him permanently.”  Methos slid weakly down the couch.  “Oh, *fuck*, Joe.”

“Yeah.  Exactly.  You see now why I said I was scared out of my mind?”  Methos nodded hollowly.  Joe looked at him hopefully.  “Methos…they didn’t have to be Watchers.  I mean, I asked him several times, and Nick didn’t see a single tattoo…although he did say a couple of the kids had bandannas wrapped around their wrists, the way kids do to show their gang colors.   His theory is that another Immortal, some enemy of his or Amanda’s, must have hired the gang and told them what to do.  He thinks that’s what the “She’s too close” meant, if this other Immortal was waiting nearby to get what he could of Nick’s Quickening and saw that Amanda was close enough to see the lightning and kick his sorry ass while he was down.  That—that could be it.”  Joe’s hopeful look became downright pleading.  “Couldn’t it?”

Methos pressed his eyes closed.  “It could be,” he said.  “But I don’t think we have the luxury of treating it as likely, Joe.  In all of history, the only group of mortals to ever hunt Immortals consistently—and to do it in an organized manner, in packs—have been Watchers.” 

 “Yeah,” Joe said quietly.  “Yeah, I know.”  He touched Methos’s arm lightly, making the old Immortal re-open his eyes.  “You think there’s a new Horton, don’t you.”

“I think it’s a possibility we have to consider.” Methos regarded Joe gravely.  “We both know that the Watchers were becoming more and more paranoid in the years before we left.  Requiring new photo ID every six months, instituting random ‘mortality spot-checks’—that’s exactly that kind of environment of total suspicion and control that’s tailor made for breeding new Hortons, Jobey.  You know it as well as I do.  Not to mention that you are quite right: the fact that there’s been this many non-Watched Immortals in Las Cruces during the last few years is suspicious.  Somebody may very well be manipulating the Chronicles, leaving them purposefully incomplete.”  He cradled his suddenly aching head wearily in his hands.  “Of course, even if someone is, there’s no real proof it has anything to do with us.  But…there’s also a chance that this ‘someone’ may have known we were here in Las Cruces all along.  They could have been Watching us from the very beginning and re-writing the Chronicles to cover it up.  Even if they haven’t—well.  It’s obvious that there’s been a sharp pair of eyes on Amanda and Nick.  They might very well have an unofficial Watcher or two in addition to Jason, the way Horton used to assign his people to covertly Watch his victims before he struck.  In which case there’s a good chance that Amanda and Nick may have led them straight to us, today.”

Joe paled.  “What do we do?”

“I—“ Methos sighed.  “We get on the phone.  Make sure that Nick tells Amanda his story, and Duncan, too.  Let them know what our suspicions are, get them to promise to be extra careful.  Then..."  He looked at his husband levelly.  “Jobey.  You know Dr. Eaves has been pressuring me to take that visiting professorship in Osaka.  It would be a prestigious honor for the entire department if I went, not just for me. Maybe--maybe we should say yes.”

Joe’s eyes went wide.  “You think it’s time to run?  Institute Emergency Procedure A?”

“Not A,” Methos corrected.  “C or D at the most.  I’m not saying it’s time to change identities, or leave Las Cruces for good.  But—it might be time to take a bit of a vacation.”  He smiled weakly.  “At the very least it should be easier to spot someone tailing us if we’re on the move.  We’ve gotten into such a routine here.  It would be easy to plant a Watcher or three on the UNM campus, for instance, without me catching on.  Going to Japan should shake them up a little, if nothing more.”

“Not to mention that the kinds of faces that blend in here in Las Cruces will hardly do so in Japan,” Joe agreed.  “And even if the conspiracy is big enough for them to have a whole team of Asian Watchers standing by—any new Watchers assigned to us are likely to be a little uneasy and unsure of themselves, at least to start.  They might make mistakes that would give themselves away.  Yes, Methos.  It sounds like a good plan to me.”  He gave Methos a tiny smile.  “Besides, it’s been a while since either of us had the chance to play tourist, and I’ve always loved Japan.  I’ve been dreaming about wallowing in a genuine Japanese soaking tub ever since the last time I followed Mac there.”  He rubbed the side of his abdomen ruefully.

Methos frowned, instantly overset by new worries, ones that had nothing to do with either rogue Watchers or token-bearing Immortals.  “Hurting again, Jobey?”

“Just the usual end-of-the-day stuff.  You know my hips always ache a bit when I’ve been walking over uneven ground. It may be time to ask the doc about upping my arthritis meds, though.  Or seeing a physical therapist for a few sessions to help me build up some more abdominal strength.  Seeing as how I’m about to become a world-traveler again. ” Methos nodded distractedly.  Joe reached out and chucked him affectionately under the chin.  “Hey,” he said softly.  “Don’t look so worried.  I’m in good shape for fifty-eight—well, fifty-nine, today.  Besides.  Those daydreams I mentioned?  The ones about the soaking tubs?”  He gave Methos a familiar leer. “They’ve got far more to do with my libido than my aching joints.  Having you there in the steamy hot water with me…getting all warm and relaxed…”   

The distraction worked.  Methos’s face lit up with a genuine grin.  “Well, you know,” he drawled, “It’s never too late to reconsider remodeling the master bathroom, Jobey.  We could still fit in a Jacuzzi big enough for two if we took a sledge hammer to the back wall and extended the bath into the kitchen.  After all, who really needs room for silly modern conveniences like a refrigerator or stove?  We could go back to cooking the old fashioned way…I’m sure the Pixie would love to help me build a wood-fired oven in the backyard…”

“Nuh-uh.  Not happening.  I like my kitchen the way it is, thank you.  We’ll just have to wait for Japan.” Joe reached out for him, fingers lightly brushing the side of Methos’s face.  A bolt of erotic energy suddenly went through them both, electric and unmistakable.  “Although…ah…maybe we could leave a few weeks early?” Joe suggested hesitantly.  “We could always tell people we’re having a second honeymoon…”

“Let’s get started on it now,” Methos growled.  And pounced.

***

They did indeed leave early, and took their time in getting to Japan: meandering through Europe and Asia without any real plan, simply moving steadily east as the whim took them.  After several weeks of changing their travel plans at the last minute, choosing out-of-the-way, nearly empty places to stay, and booking flights and trains for hours that ensured their fellow travelers were few, even Methos’s paranoid, defense-obsessed mind had to agree that one of two things were true.  Most likely, they weren’t being Watched at all.  Or if they were, they were being Watched so skillfully that neither he nor Joe would ever be able to tell. 

But in the end, it didn’t really matter much.  Because while he was making love to Joe one night in Osaka, Methos’s hands detected a subtle wrongness in Joe’s belly—a wrongness that, combined with Joe’s increasing episodes of abdominal pain and sudden loss of weight, terrified him enough to insist they seek medical aid.  The doctor took one look at Joe’s preliminary bloodwork and told them they needed to return home to Las Cruces immediately for more tests, which they did.  And by the time Joe’s cancer diagnosis had been confirmed, one thing was obvious.

They wouldn’t be running anywhere for a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final 2 chapters will be up this Saturday, 10/29. :)


	15. Chapter 15

**_~Somewhere in New Mexico, October 2011~  
~Two Years Later~_ **

The fourth time Methos felt a strange Immortal Presence in New Mexico, he’d already left Las Cruces behind him, never to return.  And he’d already buried one body that day.

He felt no regret over this.  Brian Smith had signed his own death warrant the day he had first dared to lay a hand on Methos’s Pixie.  The need to remove him permanently from the world was so simple and obvious that Methos hadn’t even registered his decision to do so as a decision at all.  It was just a job that needed to be done, like the ever-present need to take out the trash or clean his teeth, and Methos had given it just about as little thought.  He knew he was going to find Mr. Smith.  Then he was going to kill him, as quickly and efficiently as possible, with Joe standing by and helping however he could.  Methos didn’t even need to ask Joe about this.  Some things were so obvious they didn’t need discussion.

And he’d been right, at least up to a point.  It had been easy, laughably easy, to track Brian Smith to his favorite neighborhood bar.  Then, it was an even simpler matter to ambush him in the alley on his way to his second favorite bar, once his demented, largely unintelligible ravings about fags who couldn’t die had gotten him thrown out of the first.   Joe and Methos had acted like a well-oiled machine.  Joe drove the van—not Methos’s VW, but an emergency vehicle they’d kept in the warehouse that had been specially modified so Joe could drive it even in his wheelchair-- across the alleyway to block Mr. Smith’s escape.  Methos jumped out the side door and pressed the chloroformed rag to his face, then wrestled Smith’s unconscious body into the back of the van and shut the door.  Elapsed time: less than two minutes.  No fuss.  No muss.  And no witnesses.

After that, they’d driven to the warehouse.  Methos had intended to get off the streets, get Mr. Smith out of the van and onto a surface more easily cleanable than the vehicle’s interior, and then simply snap the man’s neck while he was still unconscious.  But Joe was a just man by nature, not merely a pragmatic one as Methos was.  He’d insisted on waiting until Brian Smith revived.  His code of honor demanded that even the likes of Brian Smith should have a chance to speak at least a few last words in his own defense. 

And if Mr. Smith had done so, he might very well have gotten his quick, painless death after all.   He might have gotten it even if he’d confined his comments to the homophobic slurs he spewed against Methos and Joe.  Unfortunately, he’d chosen to insist that their eleven-year-old Pixie was a little slut who’d enjoyed every minute of their time together…and to insist it in such filthy, unbelievable terms that Methos had deleted the words from his mind almost the second he heard them.  His husband, though, had merely looked sad.  Joe had replaced the man’s gag…and then carefully proceeded to break each of Mr. Smith’s fingers in turn, leaving him to suffer for ten timeless minutes before Joe finally shot the man through the heart with his own handgun.   Methos, remembering the sounds Brian Smith had managed to make even through the gag, repressed a shiver.  No question about it, Mr. Smith’s last moments on earth had been anything but comfortable. 

Sometimes, cold pragmatism was ever so much more merciful than justice. 

He’d kept a sharp eye on Joe as they left town, driving deep into the vast New Mexican desert.   His spouse had a gentle heart; killing a man was bound to cause a reaction, sooner or later.  But Joe simply drove, a grim set to his mouth, hand gripping the steering wheel as if propelling the black van down the lonely grey highway was the most important thing in life—and Methos was content to let him stay that way, at least until they had Mr. Smith safely buried and a few more hundred miles between themselves and the scene of the crime.  Neither of them said anything until they reached their destination: a tiny dirt road which the map said had once belonged to the Bureau of Land Management, one so overgrown with sagebrush and choked with tumbleweed that Methos knew no other car had travelled it in at least a season, perhaps much more.  The van bumped its way along its twist or turns, occasionally bottoming out but always managing to win through in the end.  Finally, when they were a good forty miles or so in and so far from the highway they couldn’t possibly be seen, Joe stopped the van behind a stony outcropping.  “Okay,” Joe said grimly, releasing the lock that held his wheelchair in place before the steering wheel.  “You get the shovel out and start digging.  I’ll start searching through our friend’s pockets.  Make sure he doesn’t have anything on him that will identify him later.”

Methos nodded.  Joe had been a Watcher for a long, long time. He knew all about illicit body disposal, since it was one of many skills Immortals had to have if they wanted to live their lives free of inconvenient imprisonment.   Methos thought thankfully that at least Joe would be spared the usual grim rite of removing the body’s teeth and fingerprints, too; by the time Mr. Smith was discovered in the desert—if he ever was—both Methos and Joe would be long gone, believed dead and starting a new life.  There was no need to go to great lengths to keep Brian Smith’s identity from being discovered. 

But there was no reason to make it easy for the police, either; destroying the man’s driver’s license and credit cards was a sensible precaution.  Methos watched while Joe, with surprisingly steady hands, wheeled himself to the back of the van and started going through Brian Smith’s pockets, laying out his worldly goods one by one: a packet of cigarettes.  A plain black leather wallet.  A cheap and battered disposable lighter, and an even cheaper and more battered disposable pen.  Three rusty bottle caps, a crumpled gas station receipt.  And finally, in an inner pocket of the jacket, a strip of six condoms, still in their foil wrappers. 

One of them had a sparkly pink barrette clipped around the corner.

It was, quite possibly, the most obscene thing Methos had seen in centuries.  Even Kronos and Caspian on their most high-spirited nights in New Camelot had failed to come up with anything that could match the simple horror of those two objects lying together in Brian Smith’s pocket, tucked away and hidden next to his heart in the same pocket most men used to carry their most precious mementoes.  Methos fought down the urge to retch.  He’d thought Joe had frozen solid, but a second glance proved this wasn’t true; Joe’s hands were actually shaking violently, vibrating so hard they blurred.  “I bought that barrette for her,” he said after a moment, his voice so rough that it didn’t even sound like Joe at all.  “The second week that we knew her.  I was in line at the market and I saw them hanging with the candy and I put one in the cart, just on a whim.  It only cost ninety-nine cents, but you should have seen her eyes when I gave it to her; you’d have thought I was giving her one of Amanda’s best diamond rings.  She wore it in her hair to church every Sunday for years.  At least she did, up until a few months ago.  When I asked her about it, she said she’d worn it to school and lost it, but I knew that couldn’t be right.  I figured she’d just outgrown pink sparkles and didn’t want to hurt my feelings by telling me.  But I guess I know what really happened to it now.   Bastard must have been planning this for months, and took the barrette to help his sick fantasies along.” Joe’s hands started shaking more violently.  “Methos.  We have to go back for her.  We have to.”

“We can’t, Joe.” 

“We *can*,” Joe insisted.  “I know that by now everyone will think we’re dead, so we can’t go back to our old lives, but…we’ll think of something.  We *have* to, Methos.  She’s just a little girl still.  She can’t…she’ll need help.  She can’t cope with this on her own.” Ghastly eyes, more panicked than Methos had ever seen, peered at him through the shadows.  “We have to, Methos.”

Methos thought, considering every possible angle, every real, overwhelming reason to say no…and then bent his head.  “All right.”

“All right?”

“All right.”  Methos nodded, looking away from Joe’s eager, incredulous face.  “We’ll go back.  It will be dangerous, but we’ll manage it somehow.  We can hide out in the warehouse for a few days at least.  Maybe we’ll find a way to kidnap her on her way to school, or I could hide in the closet at her church—anything to talk to her for a few minutes, make sure that she’s okay.  Or at least as okay as she can be, until we can figure out a way to make it better.“  He looked up at his life partner, saw the terrible, painful look of hope in his eyes, and knew Joe was reading a similar expression in his own.  “And we *will* find a way to make it better, Joe.  Somehow.  We’ll figure it out.”

Joe nodded soberly, clearly not trusting himself to speak.  Gently, he reached out and took the barrette from the strip of condoms, placing the sparkly bit of plastic carefully in his own coat pocket.  Then he crumpled the foil wrappers firmly in his hand, looking at Brian Smith’s stiff, still body with disgust.  “I should have done more than just broken his fingers,” he said.

“You did everything you needed to do.”  Methos looked Joe squarely in the eyes.  “He touched her once.  He won’t do it again.”

“No.” For a second Joe’s eyes flashed with rough, exultant violence, and he regarded the body with something like pride.  “No.  Never again.”  He took a deep breath.  “Okay.  Enough lollygagging.  You pick a spot and start digging.  I’ll finish going through Mr. Smith’s pockets.  Then I’ll burn his clothes and ID.”

Methos nodded.  He picked up the shovel, left the van, and began scrutinizing the earth to find the best spot for Brian Smith’s final resting place.  A few minutes after he started digging, he smelled the sharp scent of gasoline, and knew Joe was preparing a bonfire. The soft “whoosh” of a match hitting fuel-soaked clothing confirmed it, and suddenly Methos had more than just the moonlight to dig by.  “Shame we don’t have any marshmallows,” he said when Joe joined him.

“Don’t,” Joe said warningly, and Methos nodded.  They both had happy, even romantic memories of bonfires in other times and places.  This was not the time to invoke them.  He threw his back into digging the grave.

It took all night.  Joe spelled him at the shovel from time to time, which Methos allowed, even though they both knew it was silly; wielding a shovel was not one of Joe’s strong suits at the best of times, and so impossible as to be almost laughable while sitting in a wheelchair.  Still, Joe pitched in as best he could anyway, using his strong arms and the tip of a pick ax to break up the earth even if he couldn’t lift it away, until the hole finally got too deep for him to manage.  After that, he simply stayed nearby, holding a lantern through the dark hours and silently keeping his beloved company while Methos dug down the traditional six feet.  By the time Mr. Smith and the ashes of his belongings were safely interred at the bottom of the grave, and the last shovel-full of earth had been heaped over him, dawn had come and gone.  The desert sky was full of bright, luminous early morning light, and birds sang gaily from someplace just out of sight.  “Cheerful, isn’t it,” Methos said ironically.  “You want to say some words before we leave?”

“Hell, no.”

“Want to piss on the grave?”

Joe smiled tightly.   “Won’t say I didn’t think about it,” he answered.  “But no, he’s not worth the effort.  I’ll let the coyotes and the rattlesnakes do it for me.”  He picked the now-unnecessary lantern off the ground, balancing it across his lap.  “Come on.  Let’s get out of here.  I’ll drive towards Las Cruces for an hour or so, then find some secluded place where we can park for nap.  We’ll both want to have our wits about us before we go back into the city.”

Methos agreed.  Immortal healing had kept his hands from cramping and his back muscles from tearing with the repetitive strain, but it couldn’t cure his fatigue.  As Joe went around to the driver’s side and began the laborious process that would lift his wheelchair back into the van, Methos leaned his body tiredly against the van for a minute.  Then he wearily trudged back to the gravesite to pick up the tools, silently counting the moments until he had it safely stowed and could climb into the passenger’s seat and close his eyes.  He’d been awake over 24 hours, dug a grave, and survived having his head flattened with a shovel.  A nap was a good idea. 

Unfortunately, neither he nor Joe were destined to get one anytime soon.

It all happened so fast.  Before Methos had gotten within twenty feet of the van, the sound of a distant car engine filled his ears.  He blinked, too tired to really even process the sound, let alone figure out just where it was coming from.  But in what seemed only seconds, the sound had gone from a distant hum to a very nearby roar.  An anonymous-looking black-windowed SUV, of the sort favored by the CIA, drug dealers, and…god help them …even the Watchers these days, was barreling around the stony outcropping.  It fishtailed to a stop that sent sandy desert soil flying everywhere and filled Methos’s senses with a strong, lethal, oddly metallic-tasting Immortal presence.

Presence?  What the hell…

A woman jumped out from behind the wheel.  She was blonde, petite, and dressed in an impeccable dark tailored suit;   Methos would have taken her for a partner in an extremely exclusive law firm if he’d seen her on the street.  The effect was somewhat ruined, though, by the cold glint of the sword in her hand.  And the even colder glint in her eyes as she raised the sword to the sky in unmistakable Challenge.  “Librarian!” she screamed, her voice oddly melodious in spite of her angry shriek.  “You will not elude us again!”

Hardly able to believe this was really happening—couldn’t an Immortal ever have a little privacy, even when he was burying a freshly murdered corpse?—Methos tried hard to make some sense of the apparition, failed utterly, and went for simply trying to survive the next few minutes.  It was something that seemed not altogether certain, as the woman was now running toward him with another scream.  Where the hell was his sword?  Still in his jacket, which itself was still lying on the ground near the ashes of the bonfire; he’d shed it there last night, and had planned to pick it up last thing after stowing the tools in the van.  God.  So much for his much vaunted life-long motto of ‘eternal vigilance’.  He’d have to refrain from being snotty the next time the Highlander did something stupidly anti-survival… 

Assuming he lived long enough to see it.  The woman was closing in on him fast. Methos sprinted across the earth and grabbed up his coat, even though he had a sickening feeling that he wasn’t going to have enough time to wrest the sword from the hidden pocket before she struck.  Well, all right then.  Methos never *liked* going up against a sword bare handed, but it was hardly the first time it had ever happened.  He knew plenty of dirty tricks that could even the odds, provided fatigue didn’t slow his muscles as much as it had evidently slowed his brain.  He flexed his fingers carefully, getting ready to toss the jacket in her face…

But his fingers closed on metal, and suddenly the sword was free in Methos’s hand.  He brought it up just in time to block the woman’s first blow, which hit the Ivanhoe with enough strength to vibrate his arms and make Methos’s teeth knock together unpleasantly.  He managed to throw her off, getting her in the abdomen will one well-placed kick.  She made a satisfying “Oof” sound and danced back a few paces, but straightened up almost immediately, apparently unharmed.  They began to circle each other in the classic fashion, swords upraised, each keeping the other at distance while they hunted for the strengths and weaknesses of the other’s form.  One look at the woman’s, and Methos knew he was in serious trouble.  “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

She gave a serene, knowing little shrug.  “I’m the one who’s here to take your head.”

“Yes, I gathered that…shit!”  She’d danced forward, grinning sadistically as her sword went straight for his abdomen.  He was able to deflect the blow, but the blade caught the edge of his jeans, slicing a dark line through the denim over his hip before she retreated and they began circling again.   *Just a scratch,* he thought.  *But this is not good.  Not good at all.* “Your plans for my future are painfully self-evident,” he hissed.  “My real question is, why?”

“You still don’t know, do you?”

“Enlighten me.”

“The End of Time is coming, Librarian.  If Kahvin saw true…”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Methos shouted in frustration.  “Again with the bloody Kahvin.  What the hell is wrong with you people, anyway? Haven’t you heard? Kahvin is dead!!!”

“Only in body,” the woman answered serenely.  “His spirit still lives on, within the Tide.  And if what he saw before he joined it proves true, then we have less than thirty years to go before the Game is at end.  All that we are, all the millennia we have fought and died…soon, soon it will all be over.  The One will be decided.”  Her dark eyes flashed, and her voice rose sharply, splitting the dawn with all the power of a hawk’s cry.  “IT MUST NOT BE YOU!!!”

She threw herself on him, abandoning any attempt at skill in favor of sheer, unabated savagery.  Under normal circumstances, Methos could have countered this neatly.  He could have turned her rage against her, dancing just beyond the edge of her thrusts until she exhausted her energy and he could easily find the opening he needed.  But he was tired now, so very, very tired.  His beloved sword felt as heavy as lead, and his body as sluggish as if he was moving through molasses.  Muscles burning, all he could do was hold the sword in front of him and block her blows as best he could, aware that at any moment his strength would fail and she would make it through his guard…

And the sound of a gunshot filled the clearing.


	16. Chapter 16

The gunshot hit Methos.  Tearing pain roared up his arm, and he realized that his left shoulder had a brand new hole in it, already streaming blood.  But he had only been hit because the bullet passed through his assailant, first.  Joe had fired his trusty Army side arm, and his aim had been true.  There was a bright blossom of blood on the female Immortal’s blouse, right over her heart.  She glanced down at it, looked startled, and dropped in her tracks, sword still clutched uselessly in her hands.  Her fall revealed Joe in his wheelchair, some twenty paces behind her.  He looked pale, but relieved, and quickly wheeled to Methos’s side.  “Shit, I’m sorry,” he said, already taking off his jacket so he could wad it up and press it to Methos’s wound.  “She was moving too fast for me to get a clear shot.  Who the hell *is* she?”

“I never…”

“Saw her before in your life.  Yeah, yeah, fine.  Me neither, although it seems to me that there’s *something* familiar about her face.  I wish I could remember…”   He yanked up his shirt and tore a wide strip off the hem.  “Hold still.  I need to get that bandaged.”

“Don’t bother,” Methos said.  “It’s already starting to heal. I may have to have you help me fish out some fragments later, but for now it will be all right.  I’m much more worried about getting our friend over there tied up before she revives.”  Joe nodded and offered the strip.  Methos took it, wincing as the fingers on his newly wounded arm closed around the fabric.  “I may need a hand.”

“You’ve got it.”

With Joe in his chair and Methos down one arm—it *was* healing, but slowly, given his exhaustion—shifting a hundred and forty pounds of literal dead weight was quite a chore.  Still, they were able to heave the Immortal onto her stomach, and between the two of them managed to tie her hands.  Methos noted in a tired sort of way that she was wearing tight black nylon gloves—not the smartest choice for sword fighting, but he wasn’t about to quibble with anything that might make his opponent’s hands slip—and that she had something tightly clenched in the left one.  Methos frowned, and forced her fingers open.  A small wad of cloth fell out.  “Well, well,” he said coldly.  “What do you know.”

Joe wheeled closer, craning his neck to see.  “She’s carrying the Bloody Favor?”

“Right in one.  Although this one is another of the bloodless variety.”  Methos shook out the white square of cloth so Joe could see.  This token was clearly new, brand new, the clean white velvet thick and opulent-feeling under his fingertips.  Both Methos and Joe jumped a little as the woman on the ground suddenly jerked, lungs filling with the first ghastly breath of her resurrected life.  Methos eyed her with distaste.  “Joe,” he slowly.  “I have had just about enough of this.”

Joe nodded.  “So have I.”

“Bredoux died before I knew he was carrying a token.  Callix just picked his token off the body of a Challenger, so it turned out that he didn’t know any more than we did.  Mr. Nameless at the train depot pressed me too hard; I had to take his head before I had a chance to ask questions.  But this one…”  Methos set his mouth coldly.  “This one has information we *must* have.  If not about the token, then at least about how the hell she knew to call me ‘Librarian’.  And how she was able to find us here, in the middle of a desert.  Tired as I am, there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to force her surrender.  So I intend to make her answer all my questions, before I take her head.  But it may not be a pleasant thing to watch.”

Joe’s face was stony, but he nodded.  “Do what you have to,” he said.  “I get too squeamish, I’ll go hide in the van.  But I don’t think I will.”  He looked down at his own fingers.  “After all, I already killed once tonight.”

“Not quite the same thing, Joe.”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Joe said wearily.  “But we can save the moral debate for later.  Right now, it’s like you say.    She has information we have to have; it’s life or death.  And maybe not just for the two of us, either.  For all of our Immortal friends.”  He squared his shoulders, looking into Methos’s eyes.  “I repeat: do what you have to do.  I won’t interfere.  I’ll even help, if you need me to.”

Methos nodded curtly.  The female Immortal had ridden through all the spasms of returning life back to consciousness, and was now wriggling in a determined way, systematically testing the strength of her bonds.  “Just keep your gun on her,” he said.  And turned her over with one well-placed kick.

Her soft blue eyes roamed around instantly, taking in the scene.  Methos saw them flicker first to his sword, gleaming prettily in his still-good hand, then to Joe sitting in his wheelchair with his gun, and finally back to Methos’s face. “I want to make one thing clear,” he said when he saw he had regained her undivided attention.  “I am hungry, tired, and having quite the worst day I’ve had since…well, since the day my obsessive ex-boyfriend came to town and decided to throw a knife into my heart by way of an affectionate hello.  In other words, my patience is at minimum.  I suggest you keep that fact in mind, during our forthcoming discussion.  Now.  One more time. Who.  Are.  You?"

“My name doesn’t matter.”

“No.  You’re right, it really doesn’t,” Methos agreed.   “I could fall back on clichés and say that I have ways of making you talk…which I do.  Believe me, I do.  But when you come right down to it, I don’t actually give a damn what you call yourself. And so we’ll move on to the questions I do want an answer to, the ones it’s actually worth the trouble of torturing you for.  Five altogether, I think.”  He narrowed his eyes.  “Who, exactly is this ‘we’ you keep talking about?  How many of you are there? Why are you carrying Kahvin’s token, when the man has been dead for centuries?  Why are some of your tokens colored white, instead of red? And most important of all, how the hell do you damned people keep finding *me*, when I’ve killed every last one of you who crossed my path?”  He gestured pointedly at her neck with the sword.  “You can answer that last one first.”

She gave a bitter laugh.  “Did you really think you could hide forever, Librarian?” she sneered.  “Oh, I admit that you did well.  Always blending in, never calling attention—we’ve had eyes on you for years, but we still never knew for sure.  After all, who would believe that the sweet, innocent Professor Alex Porter, the one who finds time to tutor every needy soul on campus and loves his neighbor’s child like his own, could truly be the monster that we sought?”  Her eyes gleamed.  “But now we know. Oh, yes, we know.  We know more than we ever dreamed.  And now there will never be a safe place for you to hide again.”

Next to him, Joe’s jaw tightened visibly.  Methos just shook his head.  “And what gave me away?”

 “Idiot.”  She jerked her head toward the patch of bare earth that was Brian’s Smith unmarked graved.  “Did you *really* think the unpleasant gentlemen you just buried was managing to make ends meet on his monthly unemployment check?  Why, he spent more on beer and cigarettes alone.” 

“I don’t understand.”

“Clearly.” She shrugged her shoulders scornfully.  “Nitwit.  Fool.  We’ve been paying your charming neighbor to keep an eye on you for years.  Sadly, most of his reports were useless.  It’s not like any of us care how much beer you buy, or how often you and your husband fuck.  To be honest, for the longest time, we weren’t even sure that you were Immortal at all. But today…oh, today…”

Joe groaned softly.  Methos felt his own features freeze.  “Today, you hit pay dirt.”

“Yesss,” she hissed.  “Mr. Smith called me the moment he left you, told me all he’d seen.  Step into a swinging shovel, did you, Librarian?  How very, very careless.  And not at all like the behavior we’d expect, if you were truly the one we sought.  From all the stories that have been handed down, we would have expected *him* to have the sense to duck.”  She shook her head.  “And so you might have stayed under our radar even then, Librarian.  Even though we now knew you were Immortal, we might still have decided that you were not the Immortal we sought.  But just as I was about to hang up on Mr. Smith—he was demanding a fat bonus check, so tiresome—he told me something that gave me all the proof I needed.  I left for Las Cruces that very moment.”    The woman cocked her head to one side, looking up at Methos contemptuously.  “Numbskull.   Clod.  The next time you kill someone, you really should remember to disable the GPS on his phone.  We bought that phone for Mr. Smith, after all—it was another thing he could never have afforded on his own.  I’m assuming you found him not long after he spoke to me, but that didn’t matter.  It was still child’s play to track the phone to you here.   And now…”  

Methos swallowed.  His throat was very dry.  “And now?”

 “And now, perhaps, you’ll take my head,” she said, in an eerily melodic sing-song.  “But that doesn’t matter.  If I fall to you, I will never be part of the Tide…but that doesn’t matter much, either.  Kill me, and others will come.  Because WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE now, monster.  Mr. Smith may have been running away like the coward he was, but he was still close enough to hear your husband name you, as you lay reviving in his arms.” She smiled, sweetly, her teeth gleaming as sharp and feral as a cat’s.   “You will never be able to hide from us again, *Methos.*”

Methos flinched.  And the woman, who had clearly anticipated the shock hearing his true name would cause, was ready for it.  She reared up off the ground, quick as a leaping cat, hands pulling free of the torn cloth she must somehow have wriggled out of while they talked.  She didn’t bother to go for her own sword, lying so far away, but instead went after Methos’s, snarling and biting as she tried to wrench it from his grasp.  Joe yelled.  Methos knew without looking that he had his gun in his hand.  But he also knew that his beloved would never fire, not when he was unable to get a clear shot, and not when there was such a good chance that a bullet that incapacitated Methos but not his opponent would end with the woman getting his sword and Methos losing his head.   Methos wrestled with the woman, twisting and turning in a clumsy savage dance.  Somehow, he willed his tired arms to pull the sword up, up, up until the blade was above her shoulders, despite her desperately scrabbling hands.  She screamed in rage.  He put every ounce of strength he had into shoving the sword roughly forward. 

And thereby ended the fight, the only way he could.

***

He came to sometime later to find a gentle pressure on his hand and wheelchair tires filling his vision.  Confined to his chair as he was, Joe wasn’t able to sit on the ground and pull Methos’s head into his lap, as Methos was sure Joe very much wanted to do.  But he’d reached down enough to pull Methos’s hand into his lap with one hand, and with the other he still held his handgun, faithfully guarding Methos from the entire world.  The gentle pressure of those familiar fingers lacing through his was the final thing Methos needed to fully pull him back to life.  He gave the hand a gentle squeeze, then disengaged, pushing himself up off the soil with a groan.  Joe looked down at him, clearly worried.  “You all right?” he asked sharply.

“Fine, Joe,” Methos answered, instantly knowing what had his beloved so concerned.  Joe had never quite gotten used to seeing Methos take a head without lasting harm, not after the awful time he’d had taking Kristin.  “I’m all right.  Even Immortal strength has its limits.  Remind me never to get killed, bury a body, and take a head all in the same day.  I passed out from sheer exhaustion, nothing else.”

“Good,” Joe said levelly.  “I’m glad that’s all it was.  Because you and I--we need to move.”  He put down the gun and picked something else up out of his lap: a cell phone.  Or rather what remained of one, since it had apparently been hit several times with their pick ax.  “I found this in the back of the van,” Joe said.  “It must have fallen out of Mr. Smith’s pocket.  Just as well, really.  If I had found it earlier I probably would have burned it with the rest of his things, and I’m not sure the bonfire got hot enough to disable it completely.  I yanked out the battery and smashed both it and the SIM card to smithereens.  But we still need to get out of here, as fast as we can.  Just in case Ms. Friendly over there has compatriots that are already on their way.”

“I know, Joe.  Just let me…” Methos stood, aching in every muscle, and surveyed Joe with a lost expression.  “Joe.  Oh, god, Joe.  Whoever they are, they know who I really am.  Not just Kahvin’s ‘Librarian.’  They know I’m *Methos.*”

“I know.”  Joe’s eyes were dark.  “And I’m so sorry, beloved.  I was sure Smith was out of earshot before I said it aloud.  Like the lady there said, he took off running like the coward he was, the moment you started to heal.  But bad as that is, I’m afraid right now we have even bigger problems.”  He nodded harshly at the dead Immortal’s body, sprawled like so many expensive rags in the sand.  “I started wondering why she was wearing such weird slippery gloves to fight in, so I pulled them off.  Take a good look at her wrist.”

Frowning, Methos did so, picking up the still-warm hand with distaste.  He stared.  “Holy...”

“I know.  She’s wearing the Watcher tattoo.”  Joe wheeled to his side.  His face was ghastly pale.  “Another Immortal in the Watchers.  And this one is carrying the Bloody Favor, too.  Methos…what the hell are we going to do?”

Methos’s face was grim.  “Help me load her body into the car,” he said.  “We’ll find another place, far away from here, to bury it.  Then…” He sighed.  “Then, we run.  As fast and as far as we can.”

They didn’t stop running for the next twenty years.

The End

Methos and Joe’s adventures will continue in “[The End of Time](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8363974)”.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always a tremendous gift and will be valued more than you can ever guess. Thank you!


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